Last Plan
by Lalaith Quetzalli
Summary: -AU to Nightingale.- They had a plan, a good one... then she fell, and the plan fell with her. With all chance for the old plans lost, the god and his match will have to step out of the shadows and do what they never have before: improvise. This time she will take charge, and the universe will know who the true heroes are. (During the 1st Avengers movie) LokiOFC ThorJane
1. Fall

So, I said I'd be away for four weeks and I ended taking four months... I'm not gonna apologize, I don't see the point. Everyone who's in this knows that sometimes Real Life can get messy, and sometimes the muse just refuses to cooperate... and sometimes other fandoms just call to us (in my specific case: Hobbit and Sherlock). Now, while I won't say Avengers 2 is the best movie I've ever seen... it at least helped call me back (though I'm still extremely disappointed by the absence of my dear love... that so wasn't fair!)

Anyway, here we are. As you should know by now, I don't own the Avengers, or anything about this. I technically do own Nightingale, though not the actress I choose to use for her in the posters and wallpapers.

If you find the story familiar when you begin reading, that's completely intentional. The story starts the same as Plan B, though diverts soon enough. I just couldn't get a certain scene out of my head at it all snowballed from there.

* * *

Last Plan

(Alternative Universe to _Nightingale -and Plan B-_ )

 _By: Lalaith Quetzalli_

 _They had a plan, a good one... then she fell, and the plan fell with her. With all chance for the old plans lost, the god and his match will have to step out of the shadows and do what they never have before: improvise. This time she will take charge, and the universe will know who the true heroes are._

 **Fall**

We had a plan, then the unexpected happened, and the plan was scrapped.

 _It was one of our escape-weekends. With just the two of us in a location unknown to everyone else; the time we took for ourselves, free from any and all responsibility… And yet, that Saturday morning, I couldn't help but worry, particularly when I learnt that what we'd been preparing for during the last months was finally going to happen…_

" _So, it will all go down in the next few days." I returned to the main topic._

" _Yes." Loki nodded. "I've done all I could, stalling Thanos so the humans would have time to prepare themselves for the battle, also making sure the right information gets to the right people. It will happen now, whether I want it or not. If I resist Thanos will either kill me or go ahead with the invasion on his own…we both know Midgard stands more of a chance if I lead the army."_

" _I do." I nodded. "Doesn't mean I have to like it though."_

" _That human, Fury, has a list of empowered people I'm sure he'll be calling on the moment it all begins." Loki reminded me. "And Odin will be sending Thor as well soon."_

" _Your brother is not going to take well seeing you again."_

" _No he won't. Particularly not with the part I have to play. And of course he won't be taking in consideration the favors I've done for him…"_

" _I will make sure he knows." I had made up my mind._

" _My Nightingale…"_

" _No my Maverick. I've allowed this distance to remain between us this long because I knew it was for the best. You needed to infiltrate Thanos's army, and I needed to be in place in case plan B needed to be put in motion. Once the shit hits the fan, that will no longer apply. Also, we both know nobody is going to even consider the possibility that you're trying to do what's right. So, once the battle is over I will be finding you, I don't care if I have to break into S.H.I.E.L.D.s HQs to do it. Then I will deal with whoever I have to, to make sure everyone knows all the truth."_

" _You know if you do that, they'll never leave you alone." He said. "Right now you're just a young prodigy to them, a scholar…"_

" _A nerd, I know." I nodded. "I also know that when Fury realizes how much he's missed he'll be livid. I don't care. All I care about is you, being by your side, I will do whatever is necessary for that to happen."_

" _I do not know what I ever did to deserve you…"_

" _You took interest in an eleven-year old who knew nothing of the world, gave her the gift of music and her very first friend." I reminded him tenderly. "Then, at fourteen, you gave her a second chance at life, at a life she could have never dreamed of at first. Then, at nineteen, you decided you loved her enough to make her your wife…It is I who's not sure what I ever did to deserve you. And not because you're a god, or immortal, or a sorcerer…"_

" _I know. You love me for me." Loki interrupted me. "And that is the very reason why you deserve me. You are all I ever wanted yet never knew to ask for…"_

 _I pressed my body against his, the same as our mouths, and that was enough to lose ourselves in each other all over again._

 **xXx**

That had been on Saturday, and while then I allowed myself to get lost in our passion, by the next morning I knew there was something he wasn't telling me. Still I chose not to insist until it was absolutely necessary, which was that evening (I wasn't about to ruin what was likely to be our last peaceful weekend in a while… no way I would allow myself to think 'ever').

"There's something you're not telling me." I went straight to the point.

He didn't even try to deny it, just sighed before sitting beside me, on my window-seat (we tended to spend most of our weekends in my mansion, as it was far more private than any hotel, only leaving to eat, dance or for the theater at times).

"They are not ready…" He admitted with a sigh, running a hand through his hair.

"What…?" For a moment I wasn't sure what he meant.

Or more like, I really, really, didn't want him to mean what I thought he meant…

"The humans, S.H.I.E.L.D., the so-called heroes, and especially not Asgard." Loki elaborated with an annoyed huff. "I've stalled Thanos and his Chitauri for a full year! And they still aren't ready. The Agency is more worried about creating weapons, weapons they cannot possibly control… rather than finding a way to protect themselves. The so-called heroes… just no, I swear if someone decides to ever get them together they are as likely to destroy the world themselves as they're to save it! And Asgard… Odin is far more worried about the lack of communications brought about by the destruction of the Bifrost, than the fact that a being that shouldn't exist is about to send an alien army to Midgard!"

"Is there any chance the Allfather doesn't know what's coming our way?" I asked.

"If he doesn't, it's because he doesn't want to." My love muttered indignantly. "But then again, he's never cared much about any world not his own. And Thor is so completely focused on his woman… the world could burn and he wouldn't notice as long as it didn't affect her."

Sad, but true. It still didn't help us any.

"What are we going to do?" I inquired, mentally preparing myself for anything.

"We?" He raised a brow.

"Of course we." He should have expected that. "I've told you time and time again I would stand by you, always." I took a deep breath. "Now, does this mean we'll be setting plan B in motion? Or something entirely different?"

"Plan B, with some minor adjustments."

"Then I better send my resignation already."

Yes, there had always been a plan b, even if I never expected we would actually be needing it. I even had my resignation letter ready to go. I just needed to put the right date on it and send it to both Phil and Jane. As part of my contract I didn't actually have to give them a reason besides it being something personal. It's not like I was a vital or critical member of the group…

Darcy phoned me half an hour later. They had just seen the e-mail and were quite surprised by my abrupt resignation.

"Look Darcy… and Jane, and Phil… Wow, did you all get together to make this call? Don't answer that… Anyway, yes, I know it's sudden… I said it in the letter, personal reasons… Yes Darcy, Luka has got to do with it… Luka is my boyfriend Jane. As good as my fiance in fact… No gals, I've not been keeping him from you. You've known I was in a relationship all along! Darcy, you're the one who drives me to Santa Fe! … Well, we always knew we wanted our relationship to last, we just never talked about dates, or places, or things like that… Yes, we suddenly decided now was the right time … Hey! I take offense to that, I can be impulsive when I want! … No, this isn't really being impulsive. This is me deciding to live my own life, out of the shadow of S.H.I.E.L.D. … Nothing against you Phil. You always knew this day would come. I cannot spend the rest of my life working as a consultant for a secret government organization. That's not how it works… I accepted the job because I thought I could do good through it. Now… now it's time for a new chapter in my life."

There were a lot of murmurs going on through the phone, and I could only catch some of them. So much was being left unsaid, and I knew that when the shit hit the fan all three of them were going to take offense to my decisions, particularly the fact that I hadn't said a word of anything to any of them before things happened. But I couldn't tell them.

From the very day I'd first set foot in New Mexico I knew the day would come when I would have to give it all up. I knew it even before that, in fact. It was something I accepted as necessary. Even without the need for Plan B, the day would come when I would stand by my love's side before the rest of the world, and not everyone would understand… I just never expected to like them so much, to become friends with them: Darcy, Jane, Phil… I knew that when they set eyes on me again, standing by Loki's side, the disbelief, shock, probably even disappointment, horror, that I expected to see in their eyes, was going to hurt. And yet, regardless of how great friends they might be, and how much I might care for them, no one was more important than my match to me, no one…

In the end they told me I didn't have to return the next morning if I didn't want to. The girls just needed to do some reports on the most recent (failed) project; they didn't need me for that. In forty-eight hours Phil would pass notice of my resignation to his superiors and that would be that.

"Thank you guys." I told them through the phone. "All of you, you've been awesome friends, the best anyone could ever ask for… I could never forget you Darcy, none of you. You're all very dear to me… Yes, I'm sure we'll meet again someday. Who knows? Maybe it'll even be soon…" I just couldn't resist adding that. "Farewell… Take good care of yourselves… Love ya all…"

"Don't forget to invite us to the wedding!" Darcy yelled right before I hung up.

My love actually chuckled at that.

"Wonder if she'll still say that when she finds out just who I really am?" He commented, only half-sarcastically.

"Well, we'll be finding out in less than two weeks." I pointed out.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" He asked me, very serious.

"Completely." I nodded, just as serious. "We're doing this Loki. I will be by your side, like I've been promising you since the very beginning…"

"It's one promise that's always made me happy."

"I know. No matter how hard things might get, trust me that I'll never regret it. There's no one, and nothing, more important to me than you."

"I believe you."

"Good. Now, we better get some rest. Something tells me things will be getting hectic soon."

"More than hectic. But if we don't deal with it now, they might be even worse."

"I know. Things will work out, you'll see. No matter what happens, everything will be alright."

"We will be together. Anything else is secondary to that."

I agreed completely with that. I truly believed that together we could achieve anything…

 **xXx**

On Tuesday night, our lovemaking was bittersweet with the knowledge of what was coming. I half woke up early, before dawn, sensing him leave, but was too tired to stay up more than a few seconds, sending him my love. Then I spent all of Wednesday morning playing carelessly on the piano in the music room, trying to keep myself from pacing, or doing something else as I waited tense for my love to return. He finally did so late that afternoon. He looked even more stressed out than I had been all day, and had a lost look in his eyes.

"Love…?" I asked, very worried about him.

"I hate that fucking scepter, that frigging jewel!" Loki hissed as he pulled at his own hair. "The power it has… the power I wield with it… it's just… unnatural."

"Loki?" I called again.

I rarely called him by his actual name, but I knew we needed to be serious.

The scepter, which had been given to him by the Titan (or at least that's what we called him), it had a blue crystal that connected to the Tesseract, the Mind Gem. I knew the kind of powers he was talking about: taking control of someone. It was like brainwashing, but not exactly; it was skewing someone's perception so they would do certain things, follow orders, even if they were things they wouldn't have done normally. It made them think it was all their idea, and that they agreed to everything, they never even knew they were being pretty much controlled…

I also knew why he hated it, after how close he'd come to falling under the same kind of mind-control after his time with the Titan and his Chitauri in the abyss. It made me nervous to know how close the whole situation had gotten, how close I came to losing him…

"Oh my Nightingale…" He whispered embracing me.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one helping you?" I asked in turn, laying my head on his chest.

"You do my love, every day, just by being here." He assured me.

For a few minutes we just stood there, in each other's arms, in the middle of the music room, with the darkening garden behind a glass-wall at the back of the room.

"How did things go?" I asked eventually.

"Pretty well, all things considered." He admitted with a sigh. "I got the Dr. as we planned, and the Eye of Hawk. As well as a number of Agents I managed to get out before the whole base collapsed on their heads."

"What do you mean collapsed on their heads?" That wasn't in the plan.

"Turns out my use of the Tesseract to make my entrance caused some kind of catastrophic chain reaction that culminated with an explosion which blasted at least half a dozen sub-levels of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, subsequently making everything on top of those, collapse. Taking the Cube when I did staved off the reaction enough so that a considerable number of agents managed to get out, and the actual destruction wasn't on the scale it could have been." He shook his head. "Still, it was painfully obvious the Agency was not ready, and this is just the beginning."

"It will be alright." I tried to reassure him. "Hawkeye will make the whole thing personal, hopefully enough to make Fury not only call the Avengers in, but to convince them all to work together…without making things worse."

"That will truly take a miracle, my Nightingale." He pointed out. "You know that as well as I."

"Yeah…" Yes, I knew. "Still, one can hope. I will be in close contact with Selvig to make sure he does things as he's supposed to."

"Tell me no more." He interrupted. "Plausible deniability and all that. The less I know of what you'll be doing to ruin the Titan's plans, the better, in the end."

"I know. Have you made any plan on how we're supposed to contact S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"Aside from the general idea we made originally, no. But I'm confident an opportunity will present itself eventually."

I nodded.

 **xXx**

He was right, an opportunity did present itself. It came on Sunday evening, after Hawkeye told my love he needed a distraction and… an eyeball. The last part made me queasy, but I knew it couldn't be helped… or at least that's what I kept telling myself. I'm no fool, I've always known that Loki is no innocent, he's done some bad things, most of them justified, but still. And while I might hate the idea of him killing people, or being responsible for their deaths in any way; I promised to stand by his side, and that's what I'll do. Doesn't mean I won't try to help if the chance presents itself…

The time had come for me to step up to my promises. It was all part of our secondary plan, and as hard as I knew things were bound to get, I wasn't about to back down.

Loki procured a dress for me just for that night. It was sand colored, with semi-transparent short-sleeves, v-necked, knee-length asymmetric dress with what could be called an ice blue flower on my right hip. With that I wore a collection of thin silver bracelets on my left arm, along with my nightingale pendant and triquetra earrings, black strappy flats and a black and ice blue clutch-bag; the deamarkonian and the claddagh tattoo remained unseen. My hair was in loose curls over my shoulders and down my back, as my love liked it. My match, for his part was wearing a very elegant dark gray suit with a green scarf around his neck; the scepter, turned into a cane for the time being, was held loosely in his right arm, while I held onto his left.

After using the Shadow Paths to transport ourselves (well, Loki used them, I tagged along), we appeared in the shadows of a few trees close to a huge building where a party, a gala, seemed to be taking place; I understood the reason for the fancy clothes right then. It took just listening to some people passing talk to realize we were in Germany, though I still didn't know where in Germany exactly, I didn't ask either, it wasn't that important, not right then.

"Do we have to get to work right away?" I asked softly.

"No." He smiled at me.

I knew that the moment we stepped out of the shadows all bets were off. We were a distraction for what Hawkeye was doing, which meant we weren't being stealthy. Loki would be seen sooner or later, and everyone would notice I was on his arm. He directed a last look in my direction, as if silently asking me if I was ready, I just nodded and straightened to my full height (which, granted, wasn't much, but still).

We entered the building along with a number of other people, a quick spell from Loki stopping the security people at the doors from asking us for invitation, identifications, or anything of the like. They didn't even seem to notice that we didn't have any coats, unlike other guests.

The place was huge, and the luxurious and elegant decorations hinted to a lot of money; the event must have been organized by either a millionaire, or a politician, or maybe he or she was both. In any case, we had things to do there. I turned to ask my love who it was that we were looking for, when he smiled and extended a hand to me, theatrically bowing his head.

"Would the lady do me the honor?" He asked in a very Shakespearean tone.

"The lady would be delighted." I replied with a small giggle before placing my hand in his.

We began dancing right then. It was something I enjoyed a lot, dancing with him; we did it quite often, either when we went for dates to England, Italy, France, or some other part of Europe, or just in the mansion, with Loki placing a spell on the instruments from the music room so they would play the music.

We shared a number dances together before walking for the refreshments table; I had some water, since alcohol was just not my thing, he chose a martini for himself. After that I followed him to the second floor; from where we had a perfect view of everything going on. I watched him as he looked for his target (I hated seeing it like that, but I still knew what we were there for). He either couldn't find him or decided to leave it until later, and instead escorted me to a nearby balcony.

The view was wonderful. Germany in the middle of the night, while there was so much light on the ground that not many stars could be seen, the sky still looked quite pretty. Also, despite it being May already, the night was still a bit cool, which prompted Loki to embrace me tightly to his body in an attempt to preserve body heat.

And so there I was, in his arms, my back against his chest. I was so small when compared to him that I couldn't even reach his neck, but I was in a good enough position that, just twisting my head a little, I could place my ear right above his heart. The sound helped calm me and steel my nerves for what was coming. I could hear Loki sigh briefly before he kissed the top of my head, I just let out a breath, the time had come, and we both knew it.

Without saying a word he slackened his hold on me, allowing me to turn in his arms to face him.

"Let's do this." I stated, with more confidence than I actually felt.

"You know you don't have to do this…" He reminded me one last time. "I can still get you back to the mansion and then come do this on my own…"

"My mind's made up, love." I assured him with a smile. "I'm not backing down."

He nodded. He had given me a last chance, the time had come to get on the move.

"Let's do this." He agreed.

With that I took his arm again and we stepped into the building. It took no time to get to the stairs. We stepped down them slowly, surely, projecting all the image of a rich couple; then, as we reached the lower floor, I let go of his arm.

Loki was efficient. He knocked out a man close to him with a hit from his cane. The man would be quite sore when he woke up, but aside from that nothing had happened to him. On the other hand, the move called everyone else's attention. I wondered at the fact that they had all just seen one man hit another, straight on the face, for no reason at all, and yet instead of trying to get away, they were all just standing there, like fools.

My love's next actions, at least, got a more logical response: the people around screamed as they watched him take hold of the scientist who had been talking on a microphone earlier. I turned away as Loki raised a device meant to allow Hawkeye to get the eyeball he'd asked for.

Finally the people began fleeing the building. They didn't make it very far, as Loki followed right after them, shifting his gray suit into his Asgardian tunic, leather and armor. I followed just a couple of steps behind, just taking a second to send a slight pulse of magic to the unconscious scientist, I couldn't give him back his eye, but I could make sure he would not bleed out and die because of what had happened.

Loki shot a blast of energy from the cane turned staff to the police car approaching us. It hit the engine, making the vehicle flip and the skid upside down. I raised my own hand a second before the vehicle had hit the pavement upside down, focusing on making sure the people inside wouldn't be too hurt. I hoped it would be enough.

I stayed back as Loki called on a number of illusion-clones to herd all the people who had just fled the gala, and then the act was on:

"Kneel before me." He called authoritatively. "I said kneel!"

Eventually everyone did, terrified by the power already being displayed. Of course they did not know that most of what they were seeing were illusions; I was actually worried as I noticed they were flickering. That was never a good sign.

I didn't bother hiding from the cameras, as part of the distraction I was supposed to be seen. So I made sure to stand where people would be able to look at me, and with the fact that I was still on my feet they might even be able to realize whose side I was on; still, at the same time I made sure I wouldn't end up bothering, either my love, or anyone else (because we both knew S.H.I.E.L.D. would be sending someone sooner or later…)

"Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state?" My love was certainly laying it on thick as he strode in between the kneeling people. "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel…"

I would have rolled my eyes at his theatrics, but if the cameras were filming me it might look strange. So I stood there, as impassive as I could possibly be.

And then… one thing my love and I hadn't planned on: an old man got on his feet. We had not contemplated something like that happening, though we probably should have. I worried briefly wondering what my match might decide to do, though I didn't let it show on my face, staying where I was, not moving at all.

"Not to men like you." The old man declared with a strength I had to admire.

"There are no men like me." Loki replied in a somewhat snobbish tone.

"There are always men like you." Was the man's reply.

I had an idea in that moment, of who that man might be, not personally, but as part of a whole. A Jew… and if he was a survivor from the camps, like I suspected, that might explain why he was refusing to kneel before Loki. That still didn't help our situation…

"Look to your elder, people." The God said coldly. "Let him be an example."

It took all I had not to move a muscle even as I wondered if he was truly about to murder an innocent man. Granted, other people had already died, on Hawkeye's side, and on my match's orders, but I just wasn't sure if I could stand there and watch it without doing anything. And then, as he raised his staff I sensed something, something I was sure he'd sensed too.

Loki fired a beam from the staff, but instead of hitting the old man it hit Captain America's shield, as he had arrived from spirits-know-where and got there just in time. The attack was deflected by the shield and hit my love, throwing him to the ground among some of the still kneeling guests of the gala. I had to bite my lip not to scream and lock my muscles so as not to rush to his side immediately.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing." Captain America stated in a hard voice.

"The soldier…" Loki called dramatically as he got on his feet. "The man out of time…"

"I'm not the one who's out of time." The Captain quipped.

A stylized black plane arrived from behind the Captain, obviously his backup, and we all heard a woman call something over the speaker, though I did not pay much attention.

The people finally had the good sense to begin running, right as the illusion-clones flickered off for good and Loki and Captain America began fighting. I followed the exchange with my eyes until, abruptly, my love knocked the super-soldier's vibranium shield to a side, the side where I was standing. It took me by surprise and I had to through myself to the ground on the opposite side from where the shield to be spinning, It still went right past the spot where I'd been standing just a moment before.

The small yelp I let out as I ended half on my knees, half laying on the ground made my love react. He attacked Captain America furiously, in a matter of seconds getting him on his knees, the base of his staff against the back of the super-soldier's head.

"Kneel!" Loki hissed.

"Not today." The man replied stubbornly.

Somehow the man managed to twist and deliver a spinning kick to my love, throwing him a few feet away. Then their fight resumed.

I kept an eye on the black vessel in the sky, I didn't think they would fire with the risk of hitting their own soldier, but I still worried. And then one more person joined the party…

"Iron-Man…" I couldn't help but whisper.

The song that began blaring out of the plane's speaker's caught me off-guard. It wasn't really my kind of music, and even with the dramatic entrances my match so loved, it seemed a bit much.

The Captain was on the ground, and Loki was about to attack him again, when they both stopped to see who it was that had just arrived. The distraction, however brief, cost my love (though, on hindsight, it most likely was intentional). Iron-Man fired some kind of attack from his palms, it hit Loki and sent him flying a few feet, landing on the steps, not too far from me.

It took all I had not to scream out my love's name as I saw him laying there, especially when he was so close to me.

"Make a move, Reindeer Games." Iron-Man challenged as he landed.

When he proceeded to prepare over a dozen guns in all sizes that seemed to be a part of his suit I couldn't help but huff quietly. That truly was overkill.

For all answer my love raised his hands, allowing his armor to vanish.

"Good move." Iron-Man backed down.

I decided that would have to be good enough, as I hurried back to my feet, stumbling a bit as a foot caught on the edge of my dress (I just hoped I didn't ruin it, the dress was gorgeous). Then I rushed to Loki's side.

"Hey!" The two 'heroes' cried out, in obvious shock at my presence there.

"What the hell is going on here?" Iron-Man demanded, drawing his guns again.

I could see the way my love's eyes hardened, he didn't like Iron-Man threatening. Being careful not to be noticed by the other two, I placed a hand on his arm, trying to send some reassurance. It was the way things were supposed to be.

"Ma'am…?" Captain America called.

With that I turned to look at them, raising my head in what I hoped was confusion, letting them see my bright blue eyes…

 **xXx**

The trip to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicarrier was not pleasant, not at all. I had to listen to Iron Man insulting my love, everyone calling me a victim like I was some stupid girl who didn't know better, and then the thunderstorm began, and things got exponentially worse. One moment I was hearing Stark and Captain Rogers half-banter half insult each other, and then the lightning and thunder began; abruptly enough I knew it wasn't natural.

"Where did this come from?" The woman at the front, Agent Natasha Romanoff... or Natalia Romanova from what Barton had told us, asked.

My Maverick reacted instinctively, leaning forward and looking around, expectant. I couldn't help but react to his own mood, shifting restlessly in my own place, playing with the buckles that held me to my seat, across from my match.

"What's the matter?" The Captain asked almost mockingly. "Scared of a little lightning?"

"I'm not overly fond of what follows." My love admitted grimly.

He turned to look at me then, and I knew what I had to do. We planned for Thor's arrival; maybe not exactly in that moment or that way; but we both knew that the moment Loki revealed himself and took the Tesseract Odin would send his son to Midgard to 'handle things'. And yet, somehow, once things began happening, things didn't really go according to plan.

It began simply enough: a bang on the jet's roof announced Thor's arrival (even if the people sent by S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't the slightest idea of what was going on). Rogers hurried to arrange the cowl on his head, while Stark put on his helmet before opening the back hatch, probably believing it was better to control that, rather than risk having the new arrival tear a hole on the plane to get in. It was actually a good plan. What I wasn't counting on was the harsh wind and the moment I lost hold of my purse.

I reacted instantly the moment the clutch bag slipped from my fingers. There were many things, important things, in that purse. I cared little for my phone, money, even the IDs, but my jade flute was there, and the vials with healing powder and elixir that I always carried, just in case. I could not lose that bag! So, in an instant, I unbuckled myself and dropped to my knees to take hold of the purse before it could slip further down and out of the jet.

I barely missed being hit by Iron Man the moment Thor shoved him, making Stark crash into Rogers. I

didn't really notice any of that, making me also miss the danger the moment I got back on my feet... next thing I knew someone was pushing me aside, I lost my balance too close to the ramp... suddenly I was slipping, and then falling.

I screamed.

I have no idea how long I fell, though to me it seemed like half an eternity. I could vaguely sense Loki's presence in the back of my mind but couldn't really hear him. All I could hear was the wind rushing past me, all I could truly feel was the panic. And then... it's like my mind blanked out, there was no more fear, no more hysteria, only one thing: the absolute certainty that I was about to die, and it was followed by a need that was stronger than my previous panic... I needed to take the deamarkonian off. I needed to unlock the bracelet before I died... it was all I could think of anymore.

I pulled at my nightingale pendant almost desperately, trying to dislodge the key hidden behind it without losing it in the fall, when suddenly I was no longer alone. There was someone with me, falling through the sky just like me, and he pulled me to his body. The moment I laid a hand on him I knew who he was. Between the wind, and the fear, and the newly-found single-mindedness I couldn't really see him, but I knew who it was:

*Loki!* I practically screamed his name mentally.

*My Nightingale...* He whispered into my mind, and I knew it was because there was no way I could possibly hear him over the wind and the beating of my own heart. *It's okay, it's alright. You are safe now my love. Hold onto me. You are safe.*

*I have to...* I began mumbling, and then went quiet.

From one second to the next I was no longer sure what it was I was supposed to be doing. So instead I did as he told me. I could fell his arms holding me around my back and beneath my knees, he was holding my body tight against his chest, and I wound both arms around his neck, curling into him as much as I could, hiding my own face in the crook of his neck.

We were still falling, and a corner of my mind wondered if we would continue falling forever. I just closed my eyes tightly, praying that, whatever happened, we would survive...

It felt like every single bone in my body rattled against one another when we finally stopped falling. Loki was in a half-crouch, holding me up against his body, and while I was quite sure he was alright (because had he been in any significant pain I would have felt it); I still worried.

"Are you alright?" He asked me before I could.

"I should be asking that." I told him promptly. "You just saved my life..."

That was as far as our private conversation got, for a second later, in a rumble of thunder, Thor arrived, landing just a handful of feet away from us.

"Where is the Tesseract?" Thor demanded right away.

"Oh-ho, I missed you too..." Loki drawled sarcastically.

I wondered if my Maverick felt some sort of compulsion to provoke his brother... I also wondered if the Thunderer was so oblivious he hadn't realized what had happened to me...

"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?" Thor practically snarled at my love.

So apparently he hadn't noticed yet. I knew I was small, but really? My match seemed to have picked up on the fact and it was fueling his desire to antagonize Thor as much as possible.

"Oh, you should thank me." Loki drawled in his most sarcastic tone. "With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to conjure you here? Your precious Earth..."

Thor dropped Mjolnir then, moving to take a hold of Loki and yet, to touch him he would have had to touch me. And I reacted to that, involuntarily, in a way even I could have never expected:

"Don't touch me!" I screeched.

I was trembling, quite violently too. I had Loki's tunic gripped with both hands, hard enough my knuckles were white, and I wasn't about to let go.

"My lady!" Thor cried out, obviously not having seen me before. "You should get off..."

"Don't you dare touch me!" I wailed the moment I felt the lightest touch from him.

The mere idea of him touching me... I kept remembering the moment his hand had touched me on the plane, lightly, carelessly, and then I'd slipped. While my mind insisted that he wasn't really a bad guy, my instinct kept connecting him with danger, pain, death... a part of me was convinced I would only be safe as long as I remained in Loki's arms, therefore I wasn't letting go.

"I don't think the lady likes you very much." Loki commented flippantly. "Though considering how you threw her out of a plane, that might not be surprising..."

"I did not..." He broke off, possibly realizing what he'd done. "Oh Norns... I am so sorry..."

He reached to me again. This time I had enough control over myself to actually let go of Loki with one hand, slap Thor's away before holding onto the green tunic again.

"I do think she might prefer for you not to touch her." Loki pointed out with a half smirk.

He was thoroughly enjoying the way I was treating his brother, I could feel it. I could also sense his worry, as normal as he knew my late-reaction to be, he still wished to help me. However, we both knew nothing could be done, but what he was doing already, holding me, reassuring me.

"My lady..." Thor called to me in what I imagined must be his most soothing voice, kneeling less than three feet away from me. "You have my most sincere apologies, I give you my word, whatever harm I may have caused you, it was without intent..."

"Do you... do you realize what you did?" I asked him, fighting to keep myself, my voice, calm. "You... you threw me out of a moving plane, thousands of feet above the ground, and you didn't even notice! You could have killed me and never realized it! I realize I'm human and far beneath the notice of gods like you but..."

Loki began growling at my words, but before he could say anything, Thor interrupted me.

"Of course not, my lady!" He cried out, horrified. "I have the utmost respect for all midgardians... I am a protector of this realm..."

"And what a great protector you are..." Loki drawled. "When the first thing you do upon arrival is nearly kill a human!"

"I... I am deeply ashamed of what has transpired..." He insisted to me, trying his best to ignore Loki's taunts. "But I really, truly believe you should come with me, my lady. While I know you have no reason to trust my word, you need to know that my brother is far more dangerous than I could ever be..."

"That's debatable..." Loki told him flippantly. "And I am not your brother..."

"Not this again..." I was truly in no mood for a rehash of that argument. "Loki, please..."

"As you wish..." He nodded at me.

Thor turned to look at Loki then at I, as if trying to make out what he might be missing, what the connection between us might be. What made Loki act so pleasant to me? What made me trust him so much? The Thunderer knew he was missing something, but not what.

After spending a few more minutes in the same position, eventually Loki got on his feet, with me still in his arms. I couldn't even think about letting go, much less getting on my feet.

"So, you cannot touch me, or her." My Maverick commented with a half-smile. "What will you do then, 'brother'...?"

Thor reacted to the tone, the mocking way in which Loki had said the word 'brother', instantly.

"You listen well brother..." He began almost threateningly...

And that's as far as he got, for Iron Man appeared out of nowhere, knocking Thor off the cliff we'd all been standing on...

From our vantage point we watched Iron Man fight Thor. The two were supposed to be good guys, and yet they wouldn't stop to listen to the other; they wouldn't wait to see if the other was friend or foe... it only got worse when Captain America joined in.

There was a huge explosion when Mjolnir connected with Captain America's shield. I knew that with it being made of vibranium it was unlikely to break... in the end it created a concussive wave that destroyed a good number of trees all around them.

"And these are the people who are supposed to save the world?" I couldn't help but ask out-loud. "The world is going to burn."

And apparently I did so loud enough to be heard.

"Indeed..." Loki agreed with a sigh.

I finally realized why he considered Plan B necessary and yet... I wasn't sure if I could do it. The moment the three men stopped fighting they went back to where Loki and I stood; whenever any of them approached me I would flinch, or even jump, and even all coaxing couldn't get me to let go of Loki (though I was, finally, back on my feet).

In the end Loki and I followed them to a nearby clearing where Romanoff and the other Agent had landed the jet. I ended up sitting beside Loki this time, still refusing to let go of his arm.

"I'm not sure if this is normal..." Rogers commented, worried.

"After Point Break over there tossed her off the quinjet to her death, and Reindeer Games, for whatever the reason, saved her life?" Stark called, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Her not wanting to let go of the one person who's helped her any? Trust me, perfectly normal."

"But... he's a criminal." Rogers insisted.

"As far as she's concerned, he's the man who saved her life." Stark pointed out.

"We still don't know what she was even doing in Stuttgart, why she went to him when he chose to stand down..." Rogers began, he sounded truly worried.

"She was with Loki from the moment he arrived to the event, over an hour before he acted out." Romanoff pointed out from the front.

"That's another thing." Stark commented. "Why arrive and then do nothing for over an hour?"

"Oh, they did something." Romanoff told him immediately. "They were dancing..."

"What?!" That seemed to truly throw everyone for a loop.

I could only wonder if they planned to keep talking about us like we weren't there...

In the end, they didn't talk much. Thor hardly said a thing. He looked several times like he might try, but in the end he didn't; either he considered the topic too personal to speak up with so many people around, or he just didn't know what to say...

On the way to the helicarrier I practiced several meditation exercises, they were a good way to release the traces of panic and anxiety still in me, and I knew I would need to be ready by the moment we arrived to the helicarrier if we were to keep to Plan B, at least as much as we could considering the thoughts Loki's daring rescue of me might be causing in everyone's minds, as well as my refusal to be separated from him. My part could be explained on the spell I was supposed to be under, but Loki's actions... those didn't fit the part he was to play.

*Will you be alright, Nightingale?* Loki asked me through our bond.

*I... I think so...* Even in my mind I wasn't completely sure. *I just... I don't know if I have it in me to be separated from you, Maverick. Not right now, not...*

*It's quite alright.* He assured me. *I understand. Near-death experiences are easy on no one. I will let none take you from my side.*

I felt infinitely thankful for that, knowing I could trust him.

Truth is, I never imagined someone, I, could ever feel like that. Apparently there was a huge difference between being sick and knowing that any day you just might not wake up... and falling thousands of feet to your death. The first I had accepted with a quiet serenity (at least until Loki intervened and changed the game), the second had caused a terror in me like none I could have ever imagined... There truly was a difference between a peaceful, quiet death and a violent one. And I truly couldn't understand why some people preferred the idea of dying violently! Were they completely insane?!

Until that day, when I stepped out of the quinjet, back pretty much pressed against Loki's front, I'd never seen the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I knew who he was, of course: Nick Fury, I knew his name, his legend, but I'd never met him. The highest ranked Agent I'd ever met was Phil. Because even though my boss kept saying I was important due to my studies... truth is I wasn't that important. Not until Loki became their enemy, in any case, and by then I was gone...

I made an effort to return to the blank expression I'd had when first dashing past Iron Man and Captain America after they had 'defeated' my Maverick. I knew that, thanks to a small glamour we had applied to myself no software would be able to identify me. The only way would be for someone who knew me to recognize me, and the only such person on the helicarrier was Phil... I would worry about that when the moment came.

Not a word was said as we were escorted, by no less than a dozen armed Agents, through several halls in the helicarrier and to a cylinder-like structure with metal floor and roof and a glass wall going all around. It was odd and not something I was expecting, as far as S.H.I.E.L.D. cells went (and I had heard a lot on the rumor mill about such things).

"In case it's unclear," Fury said with a strange glint of satisfaction in his eyes. "You try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass..." he pressed a button, opening a hole beneath the cage. "Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?"

I couldn't help it, I froze, even as my grip on Loki's cape tightened. I'd just fallen off one jet, and they were threatening to throw us of another?!

"Ant... Boot..." Fury finished his speech dramatically.

I couldn't help but wonder what exactly my love had said to make Fury say that in return... probably something very melodramatic...

"It's an impressive cage." Loki half complimented him. "Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you." Fury retorted.

"Oh, I've heard..." He turned to the closest camera. "A mindless beast... makes play he's still a man." His smirk widened dangerously. "How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I?" The Director seemed to be making honor to his surname at that point as he began enlisting: "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did..."

*Good, I've fulfilled all the points in the list!* My match drawled mentally.

I almost let out a chuckle at that, instead sent a mental smack to my love. Really, it was an effort to keep a straight face with all his melodramatics, the least he could do was not make it harder.

"Oh..." He murmured dramatically out loud. "It burns you to have come so close... To have the Tesseract, to have power... unlimited power, and for what? A warm light for all mankind to share?" He smirked at the camera and the sneered at Fury. "And then to be reminded what real power is..."

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something." Fury smirked at my match with obvious satisfaction.

Before he could leave, Loki called his attention back.

"What about her?" Loki inquired, pretending not to care.

"What about her?" Fury repeated in turn, curious.

"Your people find me with a human girl and you care not to even ask her name?" Loki inquired in return. "May it be that you're not as merciful and compassionate as you would have your people believe?"

"I don't know who she is, or what you might have done to her." Fury said calmly. "All I know is that she was with you in Stuttgart, and that my men couldn't pry her away from you. In any case, her life is not worth the risk I might bring upon my people if I let her out of there. No, she'll stay in that cage too..." He turned our back to us, but then added. "You criticize my lack of concern, and yet, you saved her when she fell off that jet... that doesn't seem exactly like the 'god' who claimed to be a giant to human-ants..."

So that was what he meant with the 'ant' 'boot' comment!

"I see... does that mean you care just as little for Agent Hawkeye, and Dr. Selvig?" Loki taunted with a wide smirk. "Maybe this will be an opportunity for your men to see how little you care for all their lives..."

"My people know what the priorities are." Fury hissed, finally turning back to us. "We keep the world safe, of dangers most don't even know exist. We do it even if the price to pay is our own lives... every single man and woman in this ship, in this organization know that..."

"Really?" Loki's voice, strangely, went from mocking to ice cold. "Did the dozens of people in that scientific facility know how easily you would push their deaths aside when you recruited them? They were not your Agents, were not your Warriors, yet you care as little for their deaths as you do for the possible demise of everyone in this ship..."

"A leader that cares not for those he leads is no leader..." I whispered in a low voice, with a cadence that made the words almost sound like the line of a song.

Someone in my words seem to finally be enough to make Fury snap. He stared at me with so much anger for just a moment, then left abruptly.

*Well, we certainly drove the message home... better than I thought we would, actually.* My love admitted in a thoughtful tone.

*Maybe* I admitted in return. *But will it be enough?*

*That I know not, my love.* He said with a sigh.

I knew Loki would focus his magic so he could spy on the gathering 'heroes'. I stood with my back against the glass wall of the cage, wishing I could sit down and meditate some, knowing it would help me focus...yet if I sat I knew I risked ruining the pretty dress Loki had gotten me. So I just stood there, with my eyes closed, doing some breathing exercises, making an effort to relax. I knew that regardless of how hard I tried, a part of me wouldn't take it well if Thor came too close, or anyone tried to separate us. Still, I ignored that and kept trying to center myself as much as was possible. It was as if my brush with death had brought out in me a need to be with my match all the time...

*It's the bonds...* My love told me quietly.

*What...?* I didn't understand.

*The bonds were pulled taut when you fell.* He explained with a sigh. *They came so close to breaking... when I caught you and you held onto me like you did, it was a reaffirmation of their existence, and somehow also a reinforcement... We're now more tightly bound to each other than we used to be... than we've ever been, actually. The new level of the bond isn't quite stable yet, which is why you feel we cannot be apart... it even explains your reaction to Thor, beyond the fear you might feel for the part he played in your fall... you see him as a threat to our bond. You know that if he succeeds in his own plan we will be separated, and that is something you feel you cannot allow. I feel the same...*

*But then... if that's true...* I didn't dare finish the sentence.

However, that I didn't dare speak it, didn't mean he didn't know it already.

*The plan is a bust.* He deadpanned. *We cannot be separated until we're balanced again, and that won't be happening for days, possibly more. Which means we cannot use Plan B anymore. It simply isn't possible.*

*But we have no more plans!* I was on the edge of panicking.

*Then we shall have to improvise...*

*You hate improvising...*

*True... but right now I hate nothing more than the mere thought of leaving you. And even if we tried to just adapt Plan B, I would never do such a thing as taking you with me when I have to get the portal ready. I'm not letting you anywhere near those monsters...*

Truth be told I had always hated him being near them, especially after what had happened to him that first month, the condition he'd arrived to me in... that was one image I would never be able to erase from my mind, it would always haunt me... it was one thing I would fight to my last breath to make sure never happened again...

*So... we improvise then?* I inquired, still not quite sure.

*We improvise.* He agreed.

The chance to do exactly that came not even fifteen minutes later. Loki warned me that Thor was coming; he'd somehow managed to convince Fury to let him talk to his brother (as he insisted on referring to Loki, regardless of my love's insistent denials), try and convince him to 'repent'. If the so-called God of Thunder ever learnt what was really going on he would deeply regret thinking of his brother in such a way... either that or I would discover he wasn't the man Jane loved so much and tried so hard to be reunited with; the man I knew my love admired greatly (even if he also believed him an idiot half the time...).

By the time Thor entered the room, getting the guards to leave so the conversation was more-or-less private (though I was quite sure Fury and the so-called heroes were listening in to every word) I was standing in the spot farthest from where we expected the God of Thunder to stand. I kept my eyes half-closed, with the intent to pretend I was either half-asleep or under hypnosis; though I was perfectly alert and ready to intervene if it became necessary.

"Where is the Tesseract?" Thor demanded, standing right on the other side of the glass.

"That again?" Loki sighed, almost disappointed. "Are you a broken record? Because I believe we already had this conversation..."

"I asked questions you never gave answer to." Thor pointed out angrily.

"Some questions I may not want to answer, and some may have answers you might not want to hear..." Loki told him haughtily.

For a few seconds not a word was said, by either of them. I was beginning to think that Thor would give up, when he spoke again. The line of conversation so different I almost blinked in surprise, and I could even sense Loki's surprise; though he hid it, as always, behind sarcasm and his usual dramatics.

"I thought you dead." Thor murmured, a hand on the glass, as if wanting to touch the one he still called his brother.

"Did you mourn?" Loki forced an almost mocking tone on his voice, but I could sense how much the answer truly mattered to him.

"We all did. Our father..." The Thundered began.

"Your father." My love interrupted. "He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?"

There it was, the most important question of all, the one answer that would either make or break any relationship there might ever be between Thor and Loki...

"We were raised together, we played together, we fought together." Thor enlisted as he began pacing outside the cage. "Do you remember none of that?"

"I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness." Loki told him in the sincerest tone I'd ever heard from him. "I remember being pushed into that shadow time and again. Having my cleverness, my wit, my gift, being labeled as nothing more than 'tricks', while your recklessness, wild and downright idiocy was celebrated as though you were Yggdrassil's gift to the universe! I was always second best, sometimes not even that..." His tone turned dark. "For so many years I've been nothing more than a trickster, a liar, a cheater... until the day I turned into a monster.. except, as it turns out, I've always been that... and now you come and tell me you're surprised that I am finally making justice to the blood that runs through my veins?!"

"So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights?" Thor demanded. "No. The Earth is under my protection, Loki."

"Valiant protection!" Loki sneered at him. "Might we go back to what exactly you did upon first arriving to this realm tonight?!"

"I have offered my apologies for my fault!" Thor snapped in turn. "My deepest regrets... but the lady refuses to so much as lay eyes on me!"

"If she does, there must be a reason for it." Loki hissed at him.

"You have her under your spell!" Thor snarled. "Just like you do Eric, and that Agent I was told you took from the human research facility. You killed so many people Loki..."

"You would believe me wicked enough to keep a woman by my side against her will!" Loki cried out, deeply offended. "You're blind Thor! The truth is right in front of you, yet you do not wish to see... Those people would have died, regardless of my own actions. Humans... so eager, so willful, and yet so incredibly ignorant and naive at times... to think they could awaken a relic as powerful as the Tesseract without there being any consequences!" He shook his head. "My arrival might have worked as a catalyst that night... but the truth is that kind of destruction was always going to happen. And had I not taken the Cube when I did, it could have been much worse. The humans have no idea what they've caused by activating that relic..."

"And you do?" Thor's eyes narrowed.

"Better than you, for sure." My Maverick retorted. "I was always the scholar among the two, you could never be bothered to read anything if it didn't have to do with war. And now... things have changed even more! I've seen worlds you've never known about. I have grown, Odinson, in my exile. I have seen the true power of the Tesseract, it's true reach..."

"Who showed you this power?" Thor wanted to know. "Who controls the would-be-king?"

Loki's eyes narrowed sharply, and I couldn't help but open my own wide, 'king', what did that have to do with anything? Did Thor still believe that Loki wanted Asgard's throne?

"You know nothing!" My love practically snarled at him.

"You give up the Tesseract; you give up this poisonous dream!" Thor insisted, pained. "You come home. Brother..."

"I don't have a home and we're not brothers!" Loki insisted, almost desperate.

"Enough..." I murmured, voice getting louder as I got on my feet. "Enough. That's enough!"

Both brothers turned to look at me at the same time.

*Nightingale...* My match whispered in my mind, shocked at my sudden change in attitude. *What are you doing?*

*Improvising.* I answered simply.

Then, before he could say anything I turned to look at Thor, staring at him for a minute, before looking past him, to the closest camera, I was still staring straight at it when I spoke, voice clear and loud, the words I knew would change everything:

"My name is Silbhé Arianna Kinross Salani-Hveðrungr... I am the Nightingale." I ignored Thor's gasp before delivering the final bombshell. "I am Loki's wife and match."

"The Nightingale...?" Thor mumbled, shocked. "You are... but... I cannot understand..."

"Wouldn't be the first time..." My Maverick mumbled under his breath before turning to me. "Are you sure this is how you want to do things?"

"It's time we act and stop just reacting to the things around us." I told him softly but firmly. "I know how you love your plans my love but, regretfully, what plans we made are no longer possible." I sighed. "A year ago I vowed to always stand by your side, to never turn my back on you. And to that vow I stand... except this time I'm choosing how we go about things. In the past I've trusted you to take the lead, will you trust me this time?"

"To the end of time and space..." He assured me vehemently.

With that I turned to speak to the camera once again.

"Nicholas Fury, I know who you are, even if I imagine you haven't the slightest idea who I am... ask Phil, he'll know." I smiled. "By the way, I'm sorry for the lack of warning Phil, I never meant for you to find out about things like this... it kinda just happened..." I took a deep breath. "There is a lot we need to discuss, some very important things, which the safety of the Earth, possibly even the universe, might depend on. Also, I hope you'll send someone to actually talk to us because, talking to empty air gets tiring really fast..."

"Are you really the Lady Nightingale?" Thor asked quietly, strangely focused.

"I am." I nodded serenely. "Like I said, my actual name is Silbhé, but Loki has called me Nightingale practically since we met... so that's pretty much who I am."

"I see..." Thor nodded absently.

It seemed, indeed, like he was seeing, more than I was actually saying... it was almost scary. As were the shadows in his sky eyes as he turned to Loki again.

"I know you not at all, do I... Loki?" The Thunderer asked, ever so softly.

For an instant I felt as if the ground beneath my feet had vanished and I were about to fall all over again; then the feeling vanished as fast as it had come and I realized the feeling hadn't been mine at all, but Loki's... he was interpreting Thor's words, his use of my match's given name, as the Thunderer giving up, finally, and that hurt... it hurt him so much I felt like I couldn't breathe... until Thor opened his eyes again (and when exactly had he closed them?) staring at my love with such intensity my mind blanked, as I'm sure did Loki's.

"I'm still not giving up." The blonde announced. "I may not be the brother you deserve, and you may not be the brother I thought I knew... but if there is one thing I'm sure of, beyond any shadow of doubt, it's that we are, indeed, brothers... everything else we can fix."

The sense of relief, and wonder and... the pure love that filled my match in that moment was so great, like nothing I'd ever felt before. I knew he loved me, of course, I knew, it was one thing I would never doubt. But this love was different, it was a kind of love I did not know, for I had no siblings; the closest I could compare it to was the deep friendship I shared with Darcy and Jane, and still... I knew perfectly well nothing could compare to the love of true brothers (whether they were so by blood or word, or deed...), especially brothers who'd been so for centuries, who had shared as much together as they had... I wondered if I'd ever get to experience that? Maybe one day, if the coming days went well, I would even get to share that with Thor... and Jane.

Loki didn't get the chance to reply to Thor's words, not that I think we would have been able to say anything at all in that moment; Phil arrived right then.

"Silbhé...?" He called, approaching the cage, confused. "Is it really you?"

"It is really me, Phil..." I nodded with a small smile.

"It cannot be." He shook his head suddenly.

"What makes you think that?" I was confused by his sudden statement.

"Silbhé's eyes aren't blue." He practically blurted out before turning to Loki. "Did you do this to her? Did you take control of her, like you did with Dr. Selvig and C...Agent Barton?"

"Ah... I remember now, Agent Coulson... Phil." Loki nodded.

"My eyes..." I sighed.

I could have smacked myself for forgetting that. Of course, the original plan had me pretending to be another victim so I could be close and still help S.H.I.E.L.D. some... a plan that was no longer viable. So things would have to change.

It was also at that point that I remembered the bracelets around my left wrist, made of pure, compressed magic, so I could call on spells as needed. As I turned my attention to them I noticed that I had less than I should have... when had I used them? The answer came to me a beat later: that moment when Loki and I'd been falling together, and I'd prayed for us to survive... it would seem that I had, unknowingly, called on magic to protect us.

*I was wondering when you would notice that.* Loki smiled mentally.

I shrugged, nodding yet choosing to push that aside for the time being. Instead I waved a hand before my face, allowing the blue in my eyes to vanish, revealing my usual hazel, at the same time I also took off the light-glamour that made it impossible for face-recognition programs to work on me. Such measures were no longer necessary.

"It truly is I, Phil." I insisted calmly. "I am not under any spell, I promise you."

"I don't understand..." Phil murmured. "Silbhé... you're supposed to be home... you told us... wait a second, where is your fiance? Where is..."

"Luka?" I finished for him.

He just nodded.

I could tell by his expression that he was sincerely worried. Even though he'd never met the man; no one but Darcy had, and even she, it was just for a minute at most. He was worried about what might have happened to him, simply because he was important to me, and Phil cared, genuinely, about me, as a dear friend... I hated hurting him with my secretiveness.

"Luka Hveðrungr." My match called right then, bowing dramatically. "At your service."

"You..." Phil was completely speechless.

"It's my midgardian alias." Loki confirmed easily. "I've been using it for the last nine years or so. Maybe a bit more, though I'm quite sure you will find no record before that point."

"And why is that?" Phil was truly curious by that point.

"Because before that point I didn't care about doing anything with that name." He shrugged. "Unlike most people of Asgard, and of any other realm really. I've been in Midgard before, many times in fact. There is a certain level of... chaos in this world that I find very appealing. Far more interesting than any other realm really, even Asgard. When things never change... it gets tedious after a few decades. Midgard, from all the worlds in Yggdrassil, is the one in constant change... always changing, for better or for worse, never standing still... it's absolutely enthralling... and it appeals to my nature of mischief, mayhem and chaos..."

"You'd been in Midgard before..." Thor focused on that. "Before my exile even..."

"Many times." My love nodded as if it were normal. "At first I took a long while from one visit to the next, the Dark Ages were not a time I enjoyed seeing... but later on, especially in the last century... like I said, Midgard appeals to me."

"It appeals to you... and yet you're here to enslave the human race?" Phil muttered.

"Whoever said that?" Loki cried out in fake offense.

"You did!" Phil told him, growing exasperated. "With all your theatrical talk about the lies of freedom and ruling humanity..."

"Ah... that..." Loki nodded with a shrug.

"You truly love being overly dramatic, don't you?" I couldn't help but blurt out loud at my love. "Really, the drama club at Norwich would have loved you!"

"Oh, I was part of a troupe once, in the late 16th century." Loki nodded, wistfully. "Those were good times. Will was such a talented young man... it was so sad that men died so young back then. I left his company after a couple of years, and by the next time I dropped by, he'd passed away. The Bard of Avon some called him... I still like to watch companies put on the plays he wrote every once in a while."

I smiled, remembering the time he'd taken me to see one such play. We'd been in London at the time, the play was Coriolanus... it had been such an amazing thing to watch...

"Will..." Phil gaped. "Are you seriously talking about William Shakespeare?!"

"He was just Will back then." He shrugged. "And Anna, his wife, was such a delightful woman. Even when he had to live in the capitol to work in the theatre while she stayed in the farm to take care of the family, they were such a wonder to watch together. I'm quite sure I was one of the few to ever have that privilege... And their children..."

He broke off at that, and I knew perfectly well who he was thinking of: Hel...

Phil shook his head. I imagined it must be hard for him to reconcile the idea of someone having met William Shakespeare; and not only that, the way my love talked about him, like they'd been good friends... it probably went against every idea Phil (and everyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D.) had regarding my match.

"You have still to explain how you now claim Midgard appeals to you and to have no interest in conquest... when you said exactly the opposite upon arrival, brother." Thor reminded him.

"True." He nodded, before turning back to Phil. "Son of Coul, by all records you are a smart man. My match holds you in high regard... so tell me, what is the best and fastest way to get a team of completely different and ultimately incompatible individuals to work together?"

"Give them a common goal." Phil answered instantly.

"And when that fails?" Loki insisted. "When saving, protecting, and other such things are not enough? What then?"

Phil did not answer, though I could see in his eyes the thought was there, so could Loki.

"I believe you Midgardians have a saying..." My love drove the point home. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend..."

"You made yourself the enemy..." Thor gasped in shock.

"Bingo!" Loki actually cackled at that. "You're not that lost brother, I commend you."

"But why?" The Thunderer insisted. "Why you? Why not someone else?"

"Simple." My Maverick shrugged almost dismissively. "While you could defeat me, if I allowed it... you could never defeat the true commander of the army coming at you..."

"The Chitauri's true leader..." Thor mumbled, seemingly understanding. "Who is he?"

"Someone even you and I fighting together would stand no chance against, brother..." Loki admitted very quietly.

"What?!" The God of Thunder was in complete denial at the very possibility. "What creature could possibly hold such power as to take down both of us at the same time?"

"Someone I imagine most of the realms either ignore or deny the existence of." His brother told him, completely serious. "You would not believe it, if I were to reveal to you his identity."

"I will believe you brother." Thor insisted. "I will trust you."

After what had happened just a few minutes earlier, I knew Loki couldn't help but want to trust his brother; I just prayed the blonde wouldn't betray that trust...

"Thanos..." Loki finally revealed quietly. "They call him the Mad Titan and he... you haven't the slightest idea just how insane he is Thor... He claims to wish to court Death... as if she were a real, living being. And as a proof of his love he will kill and destroy any and all he possibly can. Beginning with this realm..."

"Thanos..." Thor repeated, suddenly breathless. "I thought... all the books we studied claimed he was nothing but a myth!"

"Yes, well, they also claimed all who fall into the abyss would die... yet I'm here, am I not?" Loki muttered, half-annoyed.

"I am not doubting your words brother, I'm just trying to understand how a being with such power, at least as much as the myths claim he posseses... could exist and yet still be considered a myth by Asgard." The blonde explained.

"It's pretty simple actually." I deadpanned. "Someone doesn't want you, doesn't want Asgard, and possibly even the rest of the realms, to know that Thanos, maybe even Titans as a whole, exist. Someone with enough power to control what is believed to be truth and what is believed to be a myth... someone who, realistically, has to know that a being such as the Mad Titan exists..."

"You do not mean..." Thor was in obvious denial.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" I shrugged, then sighed. "I know you don't like it Thor. To be perfectly honest, neither do I; though for entirely different reasons, I'm sure. The point is, there is no other reasonable possibility. Also, it's not like this would be the first time he lied, in a big way, caring little about the consequences of those lies..."

"Maybe he thought the Titans were dead..." Thor insisted.

He was trying so hard to hold onto the image, the ideal he had of his father... it was endearing and also very sad. I felt for him. I might have never felt like he did, like Loki had, but that was only because I'd never had a good relationship with my own father... at least not since I was nine (and a lot of my memories from before that were fuzzy, due to how sick I'd been at times).

"Even if he did... and I'm not saying I buy that excuse." I qualified. "Shouldn't he have made sure that at least some people knew the truth... just in case?"

"Why would he have lied?" Thor insisted. "I understand... I mean, with Loki... I can somewhat understand that... but the Titans...?"

"Because if he admitted their existence, or even just his... he would have to admit to not being powerful enough to vanquishing a creature of such power, that represents a mayor threat to the whole 9 Realms." Loki told him solemnly. "After all, it's not like the Mad Titan's obsession with Death is a secret, even the 'myths' mention it."

"I... I honestly know not what to say." The Thunderer admitted quietly.

I could feel, almost tangibly, the disillusion. He accepted that Thanos existed, was behind the chitauri, and a threat to Earth; he also conceded, at least in part, that Odin had lied... he still had a hard time wrapping his head around what it all meant about who his father truly was... I could almost feel Loki's pity/compassion towards his brother. As much as my Maverick might dislike, at times even despise Odin, he'd never wanted Thor to be in such pain... it was such a terrible tragedy, even if a necessary one.

"Say nothing." My match stated after a few seconds. "Just accept it, and move on. Remember, you still have a battle coming your way. And if you mean to truly protect this realm, to fight the chitauri and their leaders when they come... you will have to be focused. Forget about Odin and his lies, those aren't important. Focus on what really matters, right here, right now. Are you not the protector of this realm?"

"I am." Thor nodded, taking a deep breath to center himself. "And so will you be."

"Excuse me, what?" Loki was in shock at that.

Before any more questions could be asked, or any complaints voiced, the door to the cage slid open. I couldn't believe it when I saw it was Phil himself opening it.

"Phil... do you realize what you're doing?" I asked him quietly, still not moving from my spot.

"I do." He nodded solemnly. "Just make sure I don't regret it."

"Fury is going to kill us all for this..." I couldn't help but mutter.

Then, as if the tension weren't thick enough by that point, the very man I'd just mentioned had to appear in that exact moment:

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't..." He declared, completely focused on my match. "The last thing we need right now is an psychotic megalomaniac on the lose... but then again, that's not what you are, in fact, you're the exact opposite to that, aren't you? Someone so clever you knew what it would take to bring this team together, even before most of them knew they were to be a team; and with enough will and valor to play double agent with no backup but a mortal girl, and play villain to a bunch of would-be heroes, until they're ready to face the true evil..."

"Your so-called heroes will never be ready to face true evil." Loki shook his head stoically. "Not the kind that dwells in the emptiness of the abyss... but as long as they're capable of guarding this realm, they do not need to either."

"Explain yourself." Fury demanded.

"Thanos is very powerful, indeed, but he is not ignorant to the fact that he alone would never be able to conquer a realm as ever-changing and chaotic as Midgard." Loki explained calmly. "It's what he has the chitauri for. They're a lost, forgotten race, once inhabitants of a realm that died so long ago even the myths have forgotten about it..." He shook his head. "The point being, take down the chitauri with enough force to either scare them away or even completely destroy them, and you will be able to keep your realm safe even from Thanos... at least for a time."

"Until he gets his hands on another army." Fury muttered, obviously not satisfied. "Why not take him down for good?"

"It's not that simple, Director." My love shook his head. "Like I've told my brother already, it is unlikely that even the two of us working together would be enough to take him down. Your human warriors would be so far over their heads it wouldn't even be funny..."

"I do not like leaving the fate of this world in the hands of people I do not know, people I do not trust." Fury said in a hard voice.

"No one likes it, but what else can you do?" My match inquired.

I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but my love sounded almost... challenging as he said that. It made me wonder if he knew something I did not... was something else going on I (and possibly others) was not aware of? Likely, I just hoped it wasn't something that would blow up in all our faces at some point. We so did not have the time for that.

My Maverick was hesitant as he stepped through the cage's open door, though I was sure hardly anyone noticed it through his masks... Thor, somehow, did.

"Everything alright, brother?" He inquired quietly.

"Acting in the open is really not my style." My match tried his best to shrug. "I prefer more doing things from the shadows..." He sighed, turning to me. "But my Nightingale has made the choice this time, and I trust her... more than I trust myself sometimes. So we will do things her way..." He turned to Fury. "And I guess, in a sense, we will do things your way. So, what will you have us do then, Director?"

"How about we start with you giving our people back?" Fury inquired.

Loki nodded easily enough. We'd both seen that one coming.

"I could retrieve them... but I seriously doubt you would be willing to let us go on our own." My love told him, considering the possibilities.

"I would be willing to let you go, provided that she stays." The Director qualified. "While I might not know your people, the professor has referred to herself as your wife, and we have found the records that confirm this. I believe, if she stays, you will come back, for her if for nothing else."

"A sound plan." Loki nodded with a hint of respect. "Except for one detail: I cannot leave her."

He said it so calmly, my reaction had been more much visual: as I'd hurried to his side, pressing myself to his body, holding onto his arm tightly.

"You know, it's when she acts like that, that we are pushed to believing there's magic somehow involved with the two of you." The Director stated flatly.

I sighed. It was my fault... they were going to distrust us again, unless...

*It's up to you, my match.* He said simply, mentally.

*We need to tell him.* I decided after a few seconds of quiet contemplation. *They need to understand that we cannot be separated. And they need to learn to trust us...*

*Not sure the second is possible, but we shall at least try.* He agreed.

"It's not so much a matter of us not wanting to be separated, as a matter of not being able to." I stated as calmly as I could.

"There is magic involved." Loki agreed. "Only not the kind of magic you've been implying. I have, in no way, compromised her mind, her ability to decide for herself, or the way she sees reality. I would never dishonor her in such a way."

"But you would dishonor others..." Fury accused him.

"If anyone should understand about doing whatever is necessary to achieve something, it should be you, Director..." Loki retorted coldly. "At the time those events took place, I... we had a plan, and it was the only way to get things done."

He could have said so much more... reminded him of things he had ordered done, and others he'd done himself, some bad... some worse, all in the name of S.H.I.E.L.D. and fulfilling a mission. We knew, Hawkeye had told us some things; and others we'd known before. S.H.I.E.L.D... they weren't the good guys, the white hats; because such people simply do not exist. There is no black and white, only shades of gray. In the end, what S.H.I.E.L.D. was, was an organization filled with people willing to do what was necessary to keep most of the world safe; and if that meant choosing one of two evils, the lesser one... they did it and moved on. As simple as that.

For idealists, for people like me, or the me I used to be at least, that was horrible. However, being with Loki had changed me. I knew he wasn't a good guy, not really. He had good intentions, most of the time at least. But he'd done bad things, the most recent of which was the man he'd killed in Stuttgart, taking his eye so Hawkeye could use it to get the iridium. That, my love had done in front of me; there had been no doubt, no hesitation. He'd simply done it, he'd known I didn't like it; and he'd also known I wouldn't try to stop him, or hate him afterwards. Because I understood that, sometimes, even bad things were necessary.

So maybe I wasn't a good person anymore either. I hadn't kill anyone, but I was, in a way, turning a blind eye, condoning killing, and hurting of others. I knew a day might come when I would have to pay for my sins... but even then, I was willing to do those things, I loved Loki enough to stand by him, no matter what.

I might have been an idealist at some point, and while I still was one in some ways, in others I'd become a realist. I knew how the world worked, the real world, and the universe as a whole. I knew that, sometimes, violence was necessary to protect. I hated violence for its own sake, fighting just because; but if it was to protect others, I was quite willing to do it (even if I wasn't that much of a warrior). In the end, sometimes the only way to protect something or someone was by hurting someone else... it didn't make things right, not really; but we each had to make our own decisions, choose what we were willing to do, how far we were willing to go, how many shades of gray we could paint ourselves with... I'd made my choices, and they all came down to one thing, one person: Loki.

I was brought out of my musings as I heard Thor speak, he was so solemn, so serious, so different from the wild, arrogant, reckless man Loki had described to me at one time. At the same time, he was the kind of man I could imagine Jane falling crazily in love with...

"You called yourself Loki's match." He told me with a piercing gaze. "You know..."

"I know exactly what it means, yes." I interrupted him softly. "Loki and I are, indeed, a match. The legal records here on Earth have us married just a few days ago, but that's only because we didn't care for such things at first. We bound ourselves to each other by the Ancient Rites. I made the choice and we took the vows last year, after he returned to me from the abyss."

"The Ancient Rites..." Thor was understandably shocked. "Wait a second... returned from the abyss? Last year?!"

"You wouldn't expect me to have stayed lost for months, would you?" Loki didn't give him a chance to answer. "It took me a month to get out, I shall give you that. But the only reason I got lost in the abyss in the first place, was because I was too... I wasn't well-enough after our fight on the Bifrost to get out right away."

He refused to say he was weakened, though we all understood.

"Besides." Loki went on. "When would Nightingale and I have gotten the chance to make our plans if I'd spent all the last year in the abyss?" He shook his head. "Brother, you know I'm perfectly capable of traveling the realms without the Bifrost."

"It's why the elves call you Sky-Treader." Thor nodded. "You can travel the realms through the Hidden Roads..."

"And the Shadow Paths, forget not those." Loki said, almost smirking. "I prefer them above the Roads. Much more direct and less easily found..."

By the looks of Fury and Phil, it was obvious they did not understand what the brothers were talking about; and I wasn't interested in letting them know. It was always good to keep some secrets to ourselves, especially secrets that might save our lives, if S.H.I.E.L.D. ever decided to double-cross us for whatever the reason.

What I wasn't expecting was the detail Phil chose to focus on.

"If you can travel through worlds on your own power, why use the Tesseract a few days ago, then?" Phil inquired, very seriously. "So many lives could have been saved if the Cube hadn't been activated when it was, caused that cave-in."

"Because I had to make Thanos believe I needed the Tesseract." Loki admitted quietly. "It's the only way I could delay his attack... otherwise this would have happened months ago! Only by making him believe that I too needed the Tesseract to properly cross into this realm, could I convince him to wait. Not my finest plan, I'll admit, but it gave us a year... gave you a year." He shook his head. "The loss of life is regretful, a terrible tragedy. But things would have been much worse if Thanos had made his attack eleven months ago! That's how long he's been ready." He let out a breath. "On the other hand, if you had been more careful, it is possible more lives would have been preserved. Playing with a relic of such power... you simply weren't ready for the consequences of such a thing. What happened that day... it would have happened eventually, even without my meddling. And lives would still have been lost. In this instance you might place the blame on me, but it would have happened anyway..."

"We humans live such short lives, and want to do so much with what little time we do have... sometimes we fail to plan things through." I murmured, speaking mostly to myself, though I knew they heard me. "At times we might be lucky, others not so much, and yet... and yet I cannot help but think S.H.I.E.L.D. should have known better. After the things you knew HYDRA had done with the Cube during WWII... how could you just experiment on it and not be prepared for a huge catastrophe?"

Nobody answered me, but that was alright, I wasn't actually expecting an answer anyway. While Loki might be willing to shoulder the blame for what had happened that day, I was also willing to force Fury and even Phil to face the fact that at least some of that blame rested on them. It was S.H.I.E.L.D. who had made the call on retrieving the Tesseract from the ocean, and then what they'd called Project Pegasus (and some things I shouldn't even know about... but Darcy and I were curious, and she's a hell of a hacker... bad combination)... S.H.I.E.L.D. really should have known better, at least enough to prepare for a disaster. Yet they hadn't, they didn't, and innocent people paid the price, with their lives. Hopefully, in the end, the good achieved would surpass the bad, otherwise the loses would never be worth it; there was a chance they still wouldn't be.

 **xXx**

We somehow managed to convince Fury to allow us both to go. I didn't like the idea of getting on the quinjet again after what had happened the last time, but knowing it was necessary, I made no complaint. Like the previous time, Black Widow was there, as were Captain America, Iron Man and Thor; instead of the other Agent who'd been helping Romanoff before, Phil went. It was a rescue mission, but at the same time no one expected there to be much trouble.

At least I was no longer in the beautiful but highly impractical dress I'd been wearing in Stuttgart. Instead Loki had summoned a change of clothes for me, dark jeans, a sleeveless top and a zip-up dark jacket; with that went a pair of dark boots too. Very comfortable, easy to move in, and the fact that they were my own clothes also helped, a lot, put me more at ease. I also still had my favorite earrings, the deamarkonian, the silver magic-bangles and the nightingale pendant with enough magic to protect me from almost anything.

The scepter with the Mind Gem was in a lead case, thick enough to hold its power at bay; we still had it because Loki and I knew the power of the Gem was the best way to undo what had been done by it before. There were other ways to break the mind-control, but most were either too harsh or simply not safe enough.

Phil and Romanoff seemed to have a hard time believing it when we gave them the coordinates; the temporary base was in the outskirts of New York, so close to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQs it made it seem like we were mocking them... which might have worked with my love's original plan, but the reason had been much more simpler: it was easy to get energy, odd people always came and went in NY (which meant the people working for us would go unnoticed); and, of course, the subway system... after all, the base itself was an old, abandoned station.

The minute we arrived we knew something was wrong. It was as if something were stealing the oxygen from the earth... the very life from the ground beneath our feet.

"It's here..." Loki muttered.

In an instant he was covered in full battle armor, even the helmet in place, a conjured dagger already on one of his hands.

Thor reacted instinctively to his own brother's actions, summoning his own armor and taking a hold of Mjolnir.

Phil just followed the lead, taking his gun and unlocking the safe; Rogers and Romanoff doing as he did without a question.

"What the hell is going on?" Stark demanded. "Who's here? You're supposed to be the former bad guy, right? So who could possibly..."

"The Other." I didn't care about interrupting him. "It's here..."

"Which means Thanos already knows I've betrayed him." Loki added grimly.

"Does it count as betrayal when you were never on their side?" I couldn't help but ask.

"For him it does." Loki shrugged. "His reaction is not going to be pretty." He turned to Phil. "If you want to save your men we need to move now. If the Other is here I can no longer guarantee their well-being..."

"Who's this 'Other'?" Romanoff inquired, even as she got on guard.

"I know not if he is of any race, if he's ever been, but right now he's Thanos's 2IC, and almost as insane as he..." My Maverick informed them seriously. "If you want to get your friends back alive we need to get moving, now!"

Nothing more needed to be said. We were on the move immediately. I knew Loki didn't like having me there, but there was nothing that could be done about it. We couldn't separate more than a few feet... at least I wasn't defenseless, I knew some hand to hand (just enough to protect myself) and I had magic at my disposal. I also had a taser (a gift from Darcy), I had placed in my bag almost as an afterthought, it was the same when I chose to put it in my jacket before leaving the helicarrier to retrieve Hawkeye and Selvig.

The battle began almost from the moment we stepped through the doors into the temporary base; which might have been because the Other knew we were coming, or simply because Iron Man chose to blow it open rather than try and be secretive. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway, or that's what I wanted to believe anyway.

Things went from there. Pretty soon Loki was locked in combat with the Other, with Thor acting as backup, mostly keeping anyone else off his brother's back; while the others focused on all the 'enemies of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Loki had recruited during the last few days. Most weren't even truly combatants, so it wasn't that hard.

I kept an eye on everyone, calling on shields whenever a stray attack threatened someone. In the end the scepter wasn't used. The fight at some point caused a piece of pretty heavy equipment to fall on Selvig, knocking him out (and resetting his brain, so-to-speak). While Romanoff chose to do things her own way and deal with Barton's 'cognitive re-calibration' herself.

What the Black Widow wasn't expecting was when she ended up with a heavy, unconscious Hawkeye in her arms, and no way to leave as the whole place had caught on fire at some point. I was the only one to notice, as Loki was still busy with the Other, while Thor focused on getting everyone else out before it was too late. So I focused and then jumped through the flames, appearing by the two Agents' side.

"What are you doing here?" Romanoff asked gruffly, either because of the smoke, her bad mood, or maybe that was usual for her.

"What does it look like?" I replied. "I'm getting you out!"

I ignored her disbelieving look. She didn't trust us, but I wasn't expecting her to, not after what Loki and I had done to Barton, we knew how close she was to him, it was part of the reason why we'd chosen him in the first place: to make it personal. Still, it's not like I was asking her permission to save her!

I waited, just long enough to make sure Loki was gone, then I reached to touch both of the Agents, focused on the last bracelets on my arm, on my match's presence in the back of my head, and allowed myself to fall.

It was a horrible feeling, having the ground seemingly disappearing from beneath you, feeling like a free-fall with no security rope... only to then have ground beneath you again. There was a reason I'd learnt to jump when teleporting, it made the whole thing easier to bare. But there was no way I could have jumped with how I was doing things in that moment. So I had to swallow my fear, my absolute terror (after my recent near-death experience, the whole idea of falling was even worse than before), and called on the magic anyway.

We appeared on the open hatch at the back of the quinjet; the first thing I heard being my match demanding to know where I was, and how no one had noticed I wasn't with them when they ran. He noticed me the moment we appeared there, and in the next instant I was in his arms, being held so tightly I might have had trouble breathing, if it weren't for the fact that I wasn't breathing anyway at that point. Not until I managed to calm myself enough to remember to do so.

"I was making sure we all got out alive..." I told him in a subdued tone.

It was then that they all noticed Romanoff and Barton still on the ground. Phil immediately rushed to them, and with Rogers' help they managed to get the two inside the quinjet.

As the Black Widow was walking past us she stopped, looking intently at my match before focusing on me. I waited, wondering what was going through her head; when she finally spoke, her words floored me:

"Thank you..." She whispered in a rough voice.

I didn't get my bearings in time to say anything to her before she was gone, taking a seat beside the unconscious Barton.

"We need to leave before this whole place blows up." Stark announced.

That made them all react, and soon enough we were in the air.

As it turns out, the mission was a success. We managed to retrieve the two assets, and neither of them was under mind-control anymore. Phil had also managed to get the Tesseract before we were all forced to run. So, despite the mess and the fact that the Other apparently was on Earth... things hadn't been all bad.

Fury, of course, did not share my rather positive view of things.

"You say this 'Other' is now on Earth." He demanded, eyes fixed straight on Loki. "What does this mean for us? For our world?"

"It means you need to track him down and to be ready to act the moment you detect a chaos portal forming." Loki told him directly. "They may have lost the Tesseract, but Thanos will not give up. He has enough power to create a chaos portal to get his army to this realm; depending on how he goes about it, that kind of portal could appear pretty much anywhere in the planet."

"If he can create something like that, why did he wait for the Tesseract?" Phil inquired, confused.

"The Tesseract is more power, more order." My match explained. "A chaos portal is, like its name implies, chaotic. It could close on him at any moment, possibly even before he has achieved his goals; on the other hand, if done right, it could also open wider and for much longer than any of us would want it to."

"So, what do we do then?" Hill wanted to know.

We were back on the helicarrier, on the bridge this time.

"Keep track of the energies in your atmosphere, and the moment the chaos portal begins to form, send your best Warriors there." I said. "If you're fast enough, you might be able to deal with things before too many chitauri get through..."

"And how are we supposed to be able to detect these... portals?" Fury insisted. "It's not like they are something anyone in this world studies!"

Loki and I could only look at each other, not quite believing he'd just said that.

"But you do have someone." Loki pointed out. "You always have had... your Dr. Foster."

"Jane." I agreed. "She can find that portal." I realized something right then. "Where is she, by the way? Considering everything that is going on I would have thought she would be here..." I could sense the tension. "Where is she?"

"We put her on a plane right after Selvig was taken." Phil told me. "Both she and Darcy. Would have included you if you hadn't sent in your resignation days before..."

"You sent her away?!" I went through two octaves in my disbelief. "The only person with the capacity to understand portals. The one person who not only has seen them, but could study them, and who is able to even detect them! Someone who could, potentially, create an Einsten-Rosen bridge of her own with the right materials and an appropriate energy source... and you decided to send her away when you could potentially need her the most?!"

"We did it for her own safety." Hill practically snapped at me. "After Dr. Selvig was taken, and knowing it was Loki behind it, we thought her connection to Thor and to New Mexico might put her in danger as well. She's an asset and needed to be protected..."

"You thought I would go after her?!" Loki was the one reacting indignant then. "While, granted, my attitude at the time might have suggest such a thing... no one with half a mind for strategy would have ever done that. All it would have achieved was push Thor over the edge. He would have been useless, to you, and to me... regardless of which side I was truly working for."

Cold, but accurate. Thor would have gone crazy, he would have been unable to focus; also, he might have hurt Loki, even killed him before my love had a chance to explain things to him or, if they'd truly been enemies: he would have never been able to take on my husband when his mind was somewhere else completely.

"Where is she?" I couldn't her the curiosity.

"An observatory in Tromso... Norway." Phil informed me after a second of hesitation.

I simply couldn't hold back the laughter that spilled from my lips at that.

"Norway?" I repeated, still laughing.

"So ironic..." Loki agreed with a smirk of his own.

After a few seconds we quieted, growing serious again. We all knew how things were, even if most were unwilling to state things openly.

"We need to get her back." I finally said. "Pronto. If we are to have any hope to detect that chaos portal with enough time to get your warriors there to battle the chitauri... we need Jane."

By the look in Thor's eyes I knew he did not like it; however he also understood that Jane was needed. The safety of thousands of people (and potentially the whole world) might depend on her. Also, he knew as well as I did that Jane would never forgive him if he did something stupid (like getting himself, or someone else, innocents, hurt) just because he was trying to protect her. Jane was a big girl, she knew the kind of danger she put herself in, working on the things she did, especially since joining S.H.I.E.L.D., but she still did it. It was a decision that needed to be respected. Also, it wasn't like anyone was sending her to a battle-field; she would be safe enough in the helicarrier. No one needed her to fight, just to be able to tell the actual fighters where to go and when so they could do the fighting.

With an order from Fury, Hill immediately made arrangements for a few agents to retrieve both Jane and Darcy and get them to the helicarrier.

"Do you think the plan will work?" Thor asked my love quietly.

"I don't know." Loki answered honestly. "But I do know this. If the people on this vessel cannot protect this realm, no one can. This time you and I aren't enough, brother."

He was right, of course. I just hoped they would be enough in the end.

* * *

This marks the beginning of the second round of AU. I will do my best to update every other week, though this time I'm not making any promises.

For those interested, I'm also currently posting a series of unrelated short HLV fix-it fics (those who've watched the show know what that means), some full Sherlock, some crossovers; the first few can be seen as Gen or Pre-Slash, but most (or all, if you choose to see them that way) are straight-out Johnlock.

As always, full-sized poster and set of wallpapers can be found in my DeviantArt account, under the name Princess-Lalaith.


	2. Team

Apologies for my lateness, but I just finished this (literally I just finished writing and came to post... which also means I will apologize in advance for any mistakes, I didn't have time to look this over).

Things get a bit crossover-y in this. Mostly with fandoms I've used before, and you must be familiar with by now (Secret Circle, X-Men, Amazing Spiderman), there are a few others in the background but they're not truly important so don't mind them (if you do recognize them kudos to you! I would also be curious if anyone does).

The first scene is a lot like a similar one in Plan B, that's more-or-less on purpose, for continuity's sake and because I had trouble making it be any different... however, some things in it have changed, and there are some important twists, so I ask that you read it anyway please.

The songs for this chapter are:

\- The first part of 'Overcome' by Within Temptation

\- 'Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift and Civil War

* * *

 **Team**

They were heroes, but to be a team they would need power, courage... and trust.

It wasn't easy. It was actually pretty much the opposite of easy, a mess of epic proportions. With Erik still recovering from the effects of the Mind Gem, Hawkeye eyeing us like one would a potential suicidal bomber in the middle east, and then Jane and Darcy joined the madness. The first was so righteous, and so offended, she didn't deign speak to us (or to me, really, it's not like she actually knew my love) for the whole first day she was there. But Darcy, she was, in many ways, our saving grace.

It all came to a head one day. From the start Darcy had been so kind, so open. Apparently she'd connected the dots about my boyfriend Luka with Loki (not sure how she managed that), and as she stood before him all she did was greet him with a smile. Jane hadn't liked that, not at all, some of the others just thought she was a bit crazy, especially with what followed.

"What do you mean they're married?" She interrupted, piercing me with a glare. "What does he mean you're married? You were supposed to invite me to the wedding!"

"So, let's see if I got this right, you're not bothered by the fact that your friend's with Loki, God of Lies and Mischief…you're bothered by the fact that they did not invite you to the wedding?" Stark asked, voice heavy with a mix of confusion and sarcasm.

"Yes!" Darcy cried out petulantly.

I couldn't help myself, I dissolved into laughter. Truly, I had been worrying about so much, thinking of all the possible reactions everyone could have to the news of my relationship with Loki. And as great as I may think Jane is, most of the time she's just too far away, in her studies and experiments and even her memories… Darcy is my best friend!

"Oh Darce…" I embrace her as tightly as I can. "Please, please never change."

"I won't!" She giggled as she embraced me back.

"Darcy!" Jane almost whined. "You cannot just…just accept this!"

"Why not?" Darcy practically challenged her boss.

"Because it doesn't make sense!" Jane stated, as if it were obvious.

Loki, Darcy and I all dissolved into laughter yet again.

I was the first one to stop, when Jane's glare reminded me that even if I didn't care for her as much as I did for Darcy, she was still my friend, I liked her and didn't want to lose her friendship. Also, I hoped she might be able to help me with Thor…

"Jane, you know as well as I that what makes sense to one person, or even a dozen or a hundred people; won't necessarily make the same sense to any other individual." I told her calmly.

"What sense should I be making of this situation then?" Jane asked, brow raised.

"Jane, dear, you're awesome, but you're also too into Thor." Darcy spoke before I could. "No offense to you big guy. Jane, you and I both know you would have never listened to a word Silbhé said if she had told us the man she was dating was Thor's brother…"

"Of course not!" Jane didn't even bother denying it. "After everything he's done!"

"Right…" Darcy abruptly spun around to face us. "I've been wondering about that. Why exactly did you do any of that?"

Loki seemed to freeze, something that didn't go unnoticed by anyone present.

"What?" Darcy asked, confused by his attitude.

"You just surprised him Darce." I told her quietly. "No one before has ever bothered asking him that. No one ever has cared…" I surreptitiously brushed off a tear. "They see his actions as evil and think him evil as a consequence. No doubts, no checks…nothing."

I opened my eyes, not sure when exactly I'd closed them. What I could have never expected was the way every single pair of eyes was directed at me in that very moment.

*Well, you did always want to tell people things…* Loki reminded me inside our bond. *Now's your chance my Nightingale.*

Yes, it was my chance; and while it was true that I'd wanted to do that for a very long time, that I always said I would do it, and do it right…in that moment I just had no idea what to say…

" _Even when the words fail you, the facts are still the same…just speak from your heart and everything will be alright…It's what your mom always said…"_

Aunt Kathryn had told me that once; and the fact that it was a piece of advice originally imparted to her by my mom…it made it all the more special. I had to talk from my heart…well, there went nothing…I could only pray it would work…

"There's a saying, all of us History majors learn early in our studies: 'History is written by the winner'." I began as I closed my eyes briefly to focus in all that I wanted to say, that needed to be said. "That doesn't only apply to wars. You all know that Loki is the god of mischief and lies… and granted, the 'mischief' part of the title is more than earned, I know very well how much my match loves his jokes and pranks…but lies? The truth (no pun intended) is that everybody lies. Whether it is by omission, by accident, on purpose, whether the intention is to protect someone, to hide something, or anything else…we all lie."

"Really?" Natasha's brow raised. "Tell me one time you've lied. Something serious, and I'm not talking about you pretending to be under Loki's spell."

"How about lying to two of the best friends I've had in my life, for the whole time we've been friends?" I asked testily. "Because, no matter how you or I look at it, I lied when I told them Luka was my boyfriend. I lied when I gave them that name rather than his real one, lied when I told them we were just dating when it was already so much more serious…I lied when I didn't tell them what my life really was about. I never wanted to hurt them, I didn't lie to hurt them, or for any other negative reason; that doesn't change the fact I lied."

Natasha nodded, apparently I'd earned a bit of respect by proving I was being serious about what I was saying…and honest too. As I spoke I began gaining confidence, I still didn't have an actual plan on where I was going, I was just winging it.

"So…lets talk about lies." I stated. "Like I said already, I lied about that, also about being under Loki's spell, and by omission when I didn't tell you all everything I know right away…but then again, I'm not the only one who's at ease with lying, am I right Director?" I arched a brow. "Tell me Director Fury, how far would you have gone to see your group of would-be heroes become the team you wanted them to be? This Avengers Initiative...? You would have lied, without a doubt, I know not for sure how far it would have been, but I'm sure we can agree on that much at least, can't we?"

I would have done whatever was necessary for the Earth to be saved." Fury stated, not even bothering trying to deny anything. "That's what I do. It's what SHIELD does."

No one knew how to reply to that. Nothing had actually happened... then again, I couldn't really say that they were a team either, that would come in good time. And in any case, that wasn't supposed to be the point.

"Anyway." I tried to get everyone to focus again. "I'm sure all of you can think of a lot more instances when you have lied or been lied to. The point I'm trying to get to here, isn't the lies themselves, but their consequences. In my case, I lied to my friends about my relationship with Loki because it was a secret I didn't think they would be able to understand. Maybe they would have, maybe not, things are what they are. As for the lies when you found us in Germany, they were all part of a carefully made plan, most of which went down at the same time I did."

I was still trying to wave away Thor's repeated apologies when Darcy called.

"What exactly happened?" She demanded.

Her response to the accident (because I will never stop claiming it was such) was scary. In that moment the Avengers got to see, not the half-crazy happy-go-lucky gal who had studied Poli-Sci and yet chose to assist Jane for whatever the reason; but instead the girl who'd grown up in the South, been forced to learn to stand for herself against bullies and handsy-guys who thought it alright to get touchy with her, the same girl who tased the god of thunder when he threatened her in the middle of the New Mexico desert (My Maverick would never stop laughing over that one).

"That doesn't matter." I stated eventually. "What happened in the quinjet was an awful accident, but it's not really important right now. Even though some things didn't go as they were supposed to, as we'd planned; you must all realize they could have gone much worse… None of us are dead, we took on the first way, and even if there is an invasion still coming, I'm sure we can handle it. Somehow..." I shook my head. "Anyway, Loki's lies painted him as a villain, as we both knew they would. It was something we both accepted as necessary, as there was no one else who could do what he was doing and get away with it…for the most part."

"Why not ask for help?" Jane wanted to know.

"I had all the help I could need." He answered, looking pointedly at me.

"Yeah, because everyone would have been so willing to help him." I said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Even without the mess in New Mexico last year everyone associates the name Loki with 'God of Lies' and evil. Truly, Norse mythology sometimes is more of a pain than it's a help; particularly with all the mistakes they make!"

"Mistakes?" Stark's brow raised, interested.

"A topic for another time." I said evasively. "Back to the main thing: lies and their consequences. There is one particular lie that has heavy bearing in all that's going, that has been going on, not since New Mexico, but long before… I'm talking about the Allfather lying, not just to Loki but to every single person, about my match's heritage."

"Nightingale…" Loki began, completely caught off guard by the turn in the conversation.

"It's alright." I whispered softly to him. "I'm here, I'll always be here... And we both know that all the truth needs to come out. All of it."

"There's nothing wrong about being what you are brother..." Thor tried to reassure him.

It had the exact opposite reaction, though at the same time it somehow made Loki forget himself enough not to hold back in his response.

"Nothing wrong…" Loki repeated in disbelief that was quickly changing to fury. "Nothing wrong about what I am?! I'm a Jotun! A Frost Giant! I am the stuff Aesir children's nightmares are made of! How can there be nothing wrong with that?!"

There was at least one quiet gasp and a few eyebrows raised, but mostly the would-be-heroes and other individuals present just stayed quiet.

"Will you tell me I'm wrong? Them?" Loki challenged his adopted brother. "Why don't you tell your friends what exactly it was you used to say when we were children? Huh? What our bedtime stories were all about, and what you said every time one ended!"

There was an almost maniacal glint in his eyes, even as I was the only one to see how close he was to breaking. Closer than ever before…and that was saying something, considering how hard things had been since the revelation of his parentage the year before.

"Thor…" Jane asked quietly, when her boyfriend wouldn't say a word.

"Our father fought in the last Great War, the last interdimensional war." Thor began explaining.

"He's not my father!" Loki hissed. "Just like you're not my brother! When will that get through your thick head?!"

"Loki…" I whispered, taking hold of his face.

Everything was a mess... and to think that just the day before I'd been so hopeful, that I'd believed we might be getting to a good place, a place of joy, and acceptance. But my love had faced scorn and rejection and many other negative emotions and reactions for just too long. He didn't seem to know what to do with positive things when they came from anyone other than me...

"It was a war between the Aesir and the Jotun." Thor went on, choosing not to fight Loki on the matter of family for the time being. "The Frost Giants were actually moving against Midgard… your Earth, and the Allfather lead Asgard's armies to protect your world. It all happened over a millennia ago, and it was the origin of a good deal of the myths of us there are around. When that war took place I was still an infant; but still, throughout my childhood, our childhood, most of the stories our…the Allfather would tell us concerned that war, and our warriors' valiant actions during it. I…I used to say that one day I would be just like my father…that I would slaughter all the Frost Giants…"

It looked like Darcy was close to screaming at that point, though she placed both hands over her mouth and only a keen gasp came out. Jane for her part was all open-mouthed, wide-eyed, looking at her love as if she'd never seen him before. The rest just watched the developments in absolute silence, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"I told you that in my youth I courted war." Thor went on. "That was true…in so many ways. I did not understand why my father had changed so much. Always talking about peace and such. It didn't fit the stories he'd told us during our childhood… and then it got worse." He closed his eyes, shaking his head in obvious denial. "So much worse…" He turned to my love. "It is true that none of us every thought to ask for your reasons…well, I'm doing so now. What happened last year, with my failed coronation and…everything else? I know it was you, from the very beginning, from the very first Jotun that managed to slip into Asgard. Why did you do it?"

"Honestly?" Loki asked, then laughed at his own word. "As if you could ever believe a word I say, regardless of how truthful I might be."

"I want to believe." Thor told him almost eagerly. "I want to trust. Help me do it. Regardless of heritage, or name, you're still my brother, you will always be my brother. Remember what you said that day, before I was supposed to be crowned?"

" _Sometimes I'm envious, but never forget that I love you…"_

I heard those words directly in my mind, from Loki's own. He'd said that to Thor on that day, the day when Thor's coronation was supposed to take place.

*It's up to you.* I told him inside our bond. *You know that no matter what happens here, I'll always stand by you. We're together, we're a match and that's forever. But I also know you love Thor, no matter what may have happened, what may be said. He's your brother, no matter if you don't share the same blood, or are of the same race. He's your brother, always has been, always will be. When Odin adopted you, he made you family. He may have made a lot of mistakes along the way, some I myself am pretty angry about. But I honestly believe that, whatever his plans might have been, he wouldn't have taken you in if he didn't want you for a son. This is your chance to begin getting that family back my love, take it.*

We would tackle the matter of his parents and the rest of Asgard in good time, but we could very well begin right then, with Thor. It took a few very long seconds, but eventually Loki nodded and stepped forward.

"When we were kids ou…the Allfather used to say that even though only one of us could inherit the throne, we were both born to rule." Loki began, mostly talking to Thor, but knowing everyone was listening. "Back then I didn't understand the dark secret hidden in his words… For those who do not know this, I not only am a Jotun, I am a son of Laufey, the former King of Jotunheim. Seeing as how I'm a runt (at least for that race) I would have never been much, still, in some ways I'm still considered the rightful heir to Jotunheim's throne." He seemed pensive for a bit. "Not sure who actually took the throne after I murdered Laufey…haven't actually been around there since the madness last year."

"You killed Laufey?" Phil asked, confused. "Why?"

"That's part of this awesome story!" Loki exclaimed with false cheer. "Now, it all begins a long time ago…I'm not quite sure when it happened, I just know I realized I would never inherit the throne when I was still young. I was a Sorcerer, the best in all of Asgard, from a very young age, I was a tactician, a scholar, a diplomat…and yet all most saw was a prankster, a 'Liesmith', no one believed I deserved to be King. No one trusted me with the task. It's not like I wanted to be King. No, what I wanted is for people to believe I could do it, that I could be a good King, a good Asgardian, a good son… Even after all the mess that came, that never happened, so…" He shook his head. "I knew the throne would never be mine and, at the same time, I knew you just weren't ready for it Thor. You were too immature, reckless, wild… I was sure your desire for war would bring it upon us before long if the crown was ever yours. And while most of Asgard might believe battle to be a glorious thing, and dying as a warrior to be perfection…I do not share such beliefs. Granted, it took a long time to begin adjusting to the beliefs others, like my match, hold of all life being sacred…but still. The bottom line is, I didn't believe you to be ready to be King."

"Why didn't you tell someone this?" Darcy asked, confused.

"Who?" Loki asked, the beginnings of self-loathing evident in his voice. "Thor is the apple of Odin's eye; as far as he's concerned, his 'golden son' can do no wrong. Heimdall has never trusted me, not with my ability to travel the Shadow Paths and conceal myself from his sight… that and I'm quite sure he knew the truth about my heritage all along, and judged me for it. The Court sees me as nothing more than the 'Liesmith', 'Silver Tongue', they also call me. If I had said anything about not believing Thor to be ready for the throne they would have said it was all part of some ploy to get the throne for myself…"

"But that did happen." Jane pointed out. "You became King."

"Things didn't go as planned." Loki admitted. "They were never supposed to be that way." He took a deep breath. "I knew Thor wasn't ready to be King, and I also knew no one would believe me if I told them, so I created a plan to delay his coronation. I let a small group of Jotun into Asgard; their aim was to get the Casket of Ancient Winters; an old relic from Jotunheim, which Odin laid claim to at the end of their war. I let them in, knowing they would never get it. Some of the best guards were posted at the vault, and even if they failed, the Destroyer was a final safety measure. I didn't actually expect those guards to end up killed, I admit; I believed them to be better, if not enough to take down the Jotun, at least good enough not to die…Anyway. In the end the Destroyer stopped the Jotun and things were alright. With us. the Allfather became aware of what was going on right before the coronation ceremony could be finalized. As both he and Thor became aware of what had happened, Thor reacted exactly as I knew he would…violent, hungry for bloodshed and war. That was what I'd been planning. For Odin to see that, realize the kind of danger Thor truly was, the danger he would pose on the throne of Asgard…" He let out a breath. "I stuck around afterwards because I knew things wouldn't end there, they couldn't. I was already expecting it when Thor had the foolish plan to go to Jotunheim. I discreetly informed a guard of what was going on. That was maybe my first mistake, trusting someone with something I should have done myself. And that wasn't all, Heimdall…I was planning on making a huge show of 'trying to convince him' of letting us through to Jotunheim, I didn't get to say even five words. He shouldn't have let us through at all! He went again the Allfather's express orders! Has anyone thought about that? But no! I'm the one acting against the law."

"Heimdall sees so much, and has so much power…or at least he used to until the Bifrost was destroyed." I pointed out quietly. "I think it's become a problem. All the power and apparent omniscience has gotten to his head, so to speak. If our suspicions are true, that he knew all about Loki's heritage and judged him by it, particularly at a time when even my husband was ignorant about it all… Heimdall never gave him a chance."

"That's discrimination." Darcy said, her nose wrinkling in distaste. "And unfair!"

"Life's not fair, get on with the program." Natasha almost snapped.

"Yeah, yeah, I know that." Darcy drawled. "But they are right on one thing. Why is it that all his faults are pointed out, almost with fluorescent signs even, and yet others' are ignored? That goes beyond life being unfair, that's…it's…it's like supernatural bullying!"

Loki actually snickered at that, something I truly enjoyed, as my love had been too morose since beginning his explanation on what had really happened the previous year.

"So we went to Jotunheim, and that's when things really began getting out of control." Loki admitted. "While I didn't exactly want us to go there, I'd known it was a possibility, and so once we got there I began planning accordingly." He turned to Thor. "Then you had to go and provoke a fight! I mean, I understand anger and all that, but to let a stupid taunt from that bastard Laufey push you into a fight like that?! You had to have known there was no way we could have won! Just…no way! We were far outnumbered, even all my magic wouldn't have been enough to get all of us out of there alive. Hell! Even when the Allfather arrived relatively quickly, you saw what happened to your friends, Fandral and Volstagg…"

Thor could only lower his head, ashamed.

"What happened?" Hill wanted to know.

Loki muttered something incoherent, not wanting to go into details, we were getting to a point of the story he really did not like…

"One was speared through by one of the Jotun, the other got an ice-burn, to call it something." I clarified in a low voice.

"You know that?" Several of those present turned to me in surprise.

"I know every single thing that happened in those days." I answered calmly. "I've seen it through Loki's own eyes. Which also means I understand why he did the things he did, and why certain things happened this way…and when things went so wrong without him wanting them to."

"You know it is dangerous for one like us to be sharing his mind with a human." Thor reminded Loki in a very serious tone.

"You forget that she's not like any other human." Loki retorted.

"I already have a death sentence imprinted in my very blood." I reminded them all in a grim tone. "I have leukemia. As far as the doctors and modern medicine are concerned, I should have died when I was fourteen, but I didn't…in no small part thanks to Loki."

"He healed you?" Pepper (no idea when she arrived, but she was there) asked, surprised.

"No." I shook my head. "The Cancer is still in my blood. This…" I willed the deamarkonian to become visible to all. "This bracelet is one half of a deamarkonian, something that used to exist only in science-fiction, in a book I was reading back when the Cancer came back, in fact. Loki created them, he has the other half. The bracelets give me energy, which fights off the Cancer; that's pretty much it in a nutshell. It's not enough to heal me, but enough so the cancer doesn't do me in…that is, as long as I keep wearing it."

"You depend completely on him…" Natasha gasped, and for the expression in her face, it was obvious she hadn't planned on saying that out-loud.

"Completely and absolutely." I answered calmly and with a certain degree of pride. "My trust in Loki is total and unconditional."

For a few seconds the silence allowed them all to contemplate what I'd said.

"Back to what you were saying before." Jane finally spoke. "If you had made plans and all that. How then did Thor end up exiled and you on the throne when you say that wasn't the plan?"

"After the Allfather got us back to Asgard he sent Sif and the Warriors Three to the healers." Loki explained. "Then he began berating us on what had happened. Mainly Thor. Asgard was on the edge of a war because of stupid decisions on his part…I knew Odin would be angry, I knew he would scold, probably yell, there was even the slight chance that Thor would end up punished; at least in my mind. I never expected him to take that punishment as far as he did in the end… By the time I realized what was going on it was too late to do anything about it. Thor had been made mortal and sent into Midgard, alone."

"How could you not notice something was off before it all happened?" Phil asked, confused. "If you're as great a tactician as you first seemed…"

"I was a bit…preoccupied at the time." Loki admitted after a few seconds. "I had been touched by one of the Frost Giants back in Jotunheim, except that instead of finding myself burnt… my arm began turning blue…I thought I was cursed…"

I knew he was half lost in the memories by that point, otherwise Loki would have never revealed anything like that, never said something that made him vulnerable in the slightest…

"When I finally talked about that with my…with Odin…it didn't go well." He admitted quietly. "Getting the same reaction when touching the Casket of Ancient Winters confirmed what I knew deep down, I was a Jotun…as far as Asgard was concerned, I was a monster." He shook his head. "I demanded an explanation. Why had he lied to me? What purpose did my kidnapping have? I was a weapon, nothing more than another relic…and one that was never to be used, for he'd changed his mind at some point. He spouted some tale about making peace for the two realms…but he must have known I would never truly be heir to Jotunheim's throne, not when I was taken away and certainly not being a runt. What was the point then? What's the point of a weapon when it's already been decided you shall never use it? We argued, and eventually he collapsed. Turns out he'd been postponing going into Odinsleep for too long. And yet…"

"Everything after that was a mess." I took over, knowing Loki wouldn't want to say anymore. "Thor was human and exiled; Lord Odin was asleep, and rumors were going around that he might not wake up; Lady Frigg sat dutifully by her husband's bed; and in the process Loki was left all alone, with a throne he never wanted and, more importantly, one no one trusted him with." I shook my head. "He had no support whatsoever, no one who believed in him. Because his father was in a coma, his mother was too worried about her match, his brother had been stupid and got himself exiled…and I'm a human and cannot even set foot on Asgard!"

It felt good, letting that out, all my frustration at not having been there for him when he needed me the most…at least that was one mistake I wouldn't be repeating ever again.

*I'm here my Nightingale…* He said, mental voice thick with emotion. *And so are you. We're together and we won't be separated again.*

*Never again.* I agreed.

For a second we both stood there, completely breathless, as we could feel a spiral of power twirl around us, before settling into place. I did not understand. Had another bond just formed between us? Why right then? Our bonds had strengthened upon my fall, and again in that moment? Why? And what did that mean in the long run for us?

No one else seem to notice anything going on, not even Thor, and yet I couldn't help but think that something was changing, slowly but surely, and it'd all come to a head sooner or later.

"The rest of that week was one mess after another." Loki stated stiffly. "When I talked to Mother she was sure F…the Allfather had a plan when he exiled Thor. It was then that I realized there must be a reason why he'd sent Mjolnir too. So I went to Midgard to see Thor, try and hint at what he needed to do. But it was like he didn't even care! He was too busy playing house with…" He turned to Jane abruptly. "With you! I needed my brother to back me up, and he was too busy with you!"

Jane looked first affronted, then embarrassed. Thor himself looked pretty ashamed. However, Loki refused to give either of them the chance to apologize or say anything at all, instead moving on to what had happened next.

"I went to Jotunheim too." Loki went on. "I had to fix Thor's mess…again. However, Laufey was a bastard, he refused to talk about a treaty. So I did the only thing I could think of. I lied. I offered him exactly what he wanted: a chance to kill Odin, in exchange for his signing of a peace treaty. I never planned on him living long after his signature was on the paper." He shook his head. "It was underhanded, even for me I'll admit. But it was the only way to stop war from coming to Asgard at that point!"

"You were a King." Stark pointed out with unexpected understanding. "It's the king's duty to make the difficult decisions. Particularly those their subjects would never understand, much less accept, yet are keeping them all safe…"

Loki could only nod in silence, surprised by the understanding he was getting from the pseudo-hero and millionaire.

"I always knew Sif and the Warriors Three would have a hard time following my orders, they've never trusted me." Loki went on with the story. "I was even expecting their betrayal up to a point. However, what I never expected was for Heimdall to become a traitor as well." He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of impatience. "So many things that weren't going according to plan… and I had believed myself a great tactician!"

"So you sent the Destroyer against Sif and the Warriors." Thor commented, seemingly confused as he tried to fit the things he thought he knew, with the reality being presented to him.

They all were in the same situation apparently.

"To be specific, I gave the Destroyer the order to cause great material damage and to delay your return as long as possible." Loki qualified. "Neither the Warriors Three nor Sif had the power necessary to take the Destroyer down. Only you did, and then only at full power. The way I saw it, if you truly wanted to get back to Asgard you would need to get your powers back to take down the Destroyer and then come. So…it was a win-win situation."

"If you needed Thor so much, why not revoke his exile?" Jane wanted to know.

I heard Loki cursing Jane in a low voice but, thankfully, no one else did. In the end, he didn't have to defend his actions, someone else did.

"He couldn't go against the orders given by his predecessor." It was Phil. "It's really mere logic Jane. If his first action as King had been to revoke Odin's last, it would have made it seem like he was trying to undermine his father. Also, those more loyal to Odin that to Loki would have seen it as an insult, giving him even less support than they did…which was already pretty low. No, the only way for Thor to return was to fulfill Odin's requirements. In a way, Loki was trying to help Thor do exactly that." He flinched slightly at the admittance. "It might not have been the best of plans, but I doubt he'd much choice."

"I had none." Loki qualified. "I also froze Heimdall, being careful not to kill him, to delay the return as long as possible. I needed them not to get back until I'd settled things with the Jotun, and dealt with Laufey…" He shook his head. "Heimdall made me late, I ended having to stop Laufey inside the Allfather's private chambers…Mother got hurt because of my lateness, and still I almost didn't get there in time."

*I do not like this…* My Maverick interrupted himself to whisper into our bond.

*We cannot stop now love.* I reminded him softly. *This might be our only chance to get the truth out. We cannot let it pass us by…*

He knew I was right, didn't make things any easier though. He didn't like revealing so much of himself to people who didn't have his trust, they weren't his friends, not even his allies. They could hurt as much as they could help with all the information he…we, were giving them. And yet, it was a chance we needed to take if we had any hope for the future, for our future…

"I arrived about that point." Thor commented abruptly.

"It all went to hell right then." Loki said immediately afterwards. "And I'm not joking. You allowed your stupid little friends to poison you against me. Trusted them more than me, your own brother and…things just went insane after that."

Yes, he'd gone a little insane right about that point, or maybe more than just a little. Tried to destroy a realm, even knowing the kind of sin it was. He'd just run out of hope: hope that someone would trust him, believe in him…accept him.

Loki just couldn't go on after that. He'd already admitted to so much…it should be enough.

"I will say the rest." Thor declared. "We fought. We each said some things…I realize now that Loki was trying to provoke me. It's just…you were forcing us to fight, yet you weren't really trying. I didn't see it then, but I do now. It was like…"

Thor just shook his head, not daring to finish the thought out loud. Still, I didn't need him to finish, I knew, I'd seen it through Loki's eyes, had even been able to see the subtleties Loki himself had missed in the midst of his breakdown.

"Like he was trying to provoke you into killing him." I finished for him, fighting to hold my emotions back. "Don't you see it Thor? The answer has been there all along, the one thing Loki has always wanted…You said it yourself, how when you were a child you spoke about being like your father, being a warrior and…"

I left the sentence open, waiting for it to dawn on him. I could see the moment it did, the shadow that settled in his eyes. Still, he didn't dare say anything, however, that didn't stop someone else from doing so.

"Slaying all the Frost Giants." Darcy finished for me, gasping loudly as she realized the rest. "And that included him…"

"You wanted him to kill you?!" Jane cried out.

There was such pain in Loki's eyes, in that moment I truly wanted to yell at Jane to shut up.

"Tell me something Jane." Yet again it's Darcy who speaks up for us, for my love. "If you woke up tomorrow and were told that everything you know right now to be certain, your family, your friends, your life's work, is a lie; that there's no such thing as your Einstein-whatever bridges, that Thor was just a dream, or an hallucination or maybe a fake... if you woke up tomorrow and learnt that your whole life is a lie, what would you do?"

"That's impossible." Jane retorted in a defensive tone.

"That's not the point." Darcy told her. "Did I ever tell you about my father?"

The question came so out-of-nowhere that no one knew how to reply to that.

"For most of my life I believed my father was a good-for-nothing drunk who'd walked out on my mother and I when I was a little girl." The young woman said, evidently fighting to keep her voice even. "I knew no better. Until the day Livvie, my big-cous, phoned and asked me what I remembered from back then; back when my father left and her mother died in a plane crash, all in the same week... I hadn't even noticed how odd it was for things to happen like that. I didn't really remember much, I was just a kid, younger than her even. But afterwards I was curious, so I began researching online, and I realized one thing: George Lewis did not exist... not really. Or at least, not until a few years before he met my mom. I eventually hacked into enough databases to find out that he'd more than just that alias, and wanna know what else? More than one of those was under watch of all kinds of organizations 'round the globe, for terrorism!" She drew in a sharp breath. "So my father wasn't only a good-for-nothing drunk who walk out on my mom and I, he was also quite probably a terrorist! And I wouldn't be surprised if the whole plane crash Aunt Maia died in was related somehow... at this point I wouldn't be surprised if she turned up alive!"

No one knew how to respond to that rant, though the message was clear: when you least expect it, your life can change. Not quite as dramatically at my beloved maybe; and yet even what had happened to Darcy had been dramatic enough.

"You do know that changes nothing, right?" Jane hurried to reassure her friend. "Whoever your father might have been, it doesn't change who you... are..."

Jane's voice faded as she turned from her friend, to my husband, as she fully processed her own words. And it wasn't only her, but everyone. If they could all be so sure that Darcy's father being a terrorist didn't change her, why should Loki's father being a Jotun be any different?

"Our blood may make our bodies, but it doesn't make our minds, or our souls..." Phil stated in a strong, confident tone.

After a breath, everyone agreed. It was not the end of it, not by a long leap, but it was most definitely a good beginning.

 **xXx Phil's POV xXx**

While we were all ready to throw ourselves into the preparations for what promised to be one hell of a battle... or war, quite possibly a war. Of a magnitude which we couldn't properly guess, as we hadn't the slightest idea how much of its army the enemy might be able to get into our world before the chaos portal collapsed; Loki had tried to explain all he knew about such, though no one except Jane could follow most of it, and even then the knowledge was theoretical at best. There was also the possibility of the portal simply not closing, though that was one we refused to contemplate except in the sense that we would be 'absolutely screwed up' (Stark's words, not mine) if such a thing happened.

When presented with the fact that a veritable army would be attacking at any moment, Thor had immediately offered the help of his friends, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Some of us in SHIELD still remembered them, and the damage they'd done to that huge robot that appeared in New Mexico before Thor himself recovered his powers and took it down. However, it was Loki who threw a spanner into his brother's plans:

"The Tesseract may be able to take you back to Asgard." He nodded. "But what are the chances the Allfather will let you come back? Especially with other Warriors?"

"Brother..." Thor didn't seem to know how to reply to that.

"I am your brother." The adopted prince seemed to finally accept that. "But that doesn't mean I'm his son, doesn't mean he considers himself my father. I know there will be hell to pay when he finally gets to me."

"I will never let anyone hurt you, brother!" The blonde was quick to interject.

"As long as you keep Nightingale safe, I couldn't care less." Loki shrugged.

It was quite obvious that the wife in question wasn't present (she was busy teaching high-ranked SHIELD Agents about mythology and what was actually true), as there was no response to that comment, though most of us had gotten to know the young professor well enough to guess what she would have said to that.

"Still, that's not actually my point right now." Loki went on. "My point is that the Allfather has a very strict non-interference policy, he might decide this is Midgard's battle, and not Asgard."

"Midgard is under my protection, I've made a vow!" Thor replied strongly. "The Allfather will have to accept that."

"I'm just trying to prepare you for all possibilities, brother." Loki tried to make him calm down.

"I know you do not believe I can stand up to the Allfather, brother." Thor said softly in a moment of unexpected insight. "But I can, and I will, for Midgard, and for you."

Loki didn't know what to say to that.

A more technical discussion followed, regarding the risk the continued use of a device like the Tesseract could have. A risk which had made us up the vigilance in the area where the PEGASUS facility had once been, in case the enemy made an appearance there. According to the sorcerer, the Cube pretty much 'punched a hole' through the fabric of space in order to allow people to travel from one world to another; repeated use of it could weaken the limits of our realm enough to allow for a chaos portal to be created more easily than usual.

So Thor had promised to only do it twice: once to allow him to go to Asgard to see hiw father and explain to him the events that had taken place on our world recently; and then to return, hopefully with his friends in tow, to join the efforts of the upcoming war. Loki would not be going, as neither brother was willing to risk his being thrown into prison; Fury had gone as far as stating that the sorcerer was 'paying for his crimes' by working with SHIELD to keep our world safe, and therefore couldn't go anywhere until his sentence was finished.

The plan seemed to go alright, for the most part, what no one (not even Loki) expected was when Thor announced their parents' had been pretty insistent about talking to the younger prince, to the point that the blonde Aesir was carrying an odd device that would project 3D images of the King and Queen of the Realm Eternal in order for a 'meeting' of sorts to take place (or so Loki said, after Thor's initial explanation went over everyone's head but Dr. Foster's).

Just the way Thor's friends were acting, keeping away from everyone, but especially away from Loki and Nightingale, looking at each of them with a mix of confusion, distrust and downright scorn, was enough to tell me that things weren't likely to go well; still, nothing could have prepared us for what actually happened when the device was activated:

Professor Salani is there, though Loki only ever calls her Nightingale, something a few others have begun to pick up. She'd actually refused to 'teach' any classes to SHIELD Agents that day once she heard what Thor was planning, stating that her responsibilities as Loki's wife preceded and superseded any obligation to our organization (since she, technically, had resigned). That day she was wearing a pale yellow thin-strapped dress with a multi-layered skirt and covered in many tiny crystals which reflected the light in every color of the rainbow; over a white lacy top, white flats on her feet (unlike many other woman I'd known, she never wore heels). She was a beautiful woman, and even though I couldn't help but think she was young, too young to involve in such a mess as she was, it'd been her choice, and she'd a right to that.

Darcy Lewis was present as well, had claimed it was only fair, since she was Loki's friends, and if Thor had his friends present it was only right. I was there representing SHIELD and to back-up what Director Fury had said regarding Loki staying on our world. Finally Dr. Foster was present too, though she stayed unobtrusively in a corner, practically unseen, knowing that things would be delicate enough with Loki and his wife and not wanting to make things worse by having anyone bring up her relationship with Thor.

The 'call' began and Thor proceeded to introduce everyone in the room with what to most would seem like too much ceremony; having assisted to a few of the professor's classes, I knew why it was so, the weight those from Asgard placed in traditions and protocols. It was those very things that seemed to make the professor... Silbhé herself choose to stay by Loki's side, yet not say a word for a while at first, to the point where it seemed like no one truly noticed her, until things got to a point even I didn't like:

"When are you coming back Thor?" It wasn't the first time Odin asked that.

"I am needed here, Father, I've told you this." Thor replied in an almost tired tone.

"You are needed in Asgard." Odin replied, with little care for us or our world. "You are the crown prince of the Aesir and that means responsibilities..."

Loki scoffed and I thought Silbhé might have snorted herself.

"You also must bring the criminal Loki to face Asgardian Justice." The King added.

Even I knew it was a bad idea for the man/god, to have said that.

"I've already told you that he is contracted to serve the organization SHIELD, and until such a time he must remain here." Thor answered, he sounded almost tired. "All the same, what crime do you plan to charge him with? Opening your eyes to the fact that I wasn't ready for the throne? Upholding your own decree concerning my exile against my foolish friends and even Heimdall? Making sure Laufey would not murder you in your sleep?"

"He's a traitor..." Odin began.

"He's more loyal to Asgard than others I could name, most of whom are with us right now." Thor practically roared back.

Everyone else was left in shock at that response, the Warrior's Three looked absolutely baffled, the King of Asgard himself didn't seem to know what to do after that; like he'd never expected the day would come when Thor would stand against him, or maybe it was who he was doing it for. Loki himself seemed speechless, like he'd never been before.

"Prince!" An old looking man, who was presented as the Head Councilman, seemed absolutely scandalized at the whole exchange. "You should know not to talk like that to your King. You owe him your respect." He turned disdainful eyes to us humans. "You seem to have picked up some of the lesser humans' barbaric ways in your recent association with them. All of which will be fixed once you're back and..."

"Enough... Shut Up!"

The voice had begun quiet, but soon turned sharp and keen, causing everyone to effectively shut up, and all eyes to turn to the origin of it: Silbhé.

"Who do you think you are to interrupt me, girl?" The Councilman demanded, incensed.

"Shush!" Silbhé snapped. "I've about had it with all of you. Barbaric ways? Lesser mortals? The question here should be, who do you think you are to judge us, to look down on us? You believe us to be less, why? Because we're not immortal? That's stupid. Living thousands of years doesn't make you any better than us. It just means that you live longer, that's all. You might have more advanced technology, but your mistakes are still the same any race might make, considering those different as less, simply because they aren't like you! It's the worst kind of racism." She waved a hand sharply when it looked like the man might interrupt again. "You say Thor is in the wrong with the way he acts? Why? Because he stand up for himself? For his brother?"

"That thing isn't his brother..." The Councilman spat.

"He is my brother!" Thor roared, lightning crashing outside the Tower.

"They are brothers." Silbhé stated a second later. "You might not like it, but there's nothing you can do to change it either. Because the Allfather adopted Loki, and made them brothers, and they acknowledge that, even if everyone else seems to conveniently forget all about it when it doesn't suit your purposes." She turned to Odin. "You want so much for Thor to go back, you expect him to abandon us? Do you not understand the consequences of such an act? It wouldn't be just about us. The war that is coming... trust me, we will fight, and if we lose... do you really think you'll stand more of a chance on your own than standing with us?"

"We're a realm of warriors..." Odin began in an offended tone.

"And apparently of cowards too." Silbhé hissed back at him. "If you'd rather take away your people instead of helping."

I could only watch the exchange in silence. I knew Silbhé... or at least I thought I did, and yet the young girl so fascinated with books and art, with myths and novels, who so delighted in teaching what she knew to others and seemed willing to believe even in the most impossible things... that wasn't the woman standing before me. Or maybe it was just that I'd known her, but not all of her. The one standing before me wasn't a girl or even a professor; no, she was a woman, a wife... and quite possibly a princess as well.

"Have more respect for the King!" One of the Warriors Three, the blonde, Fandral, snapped.

"Why should I?" Silbhé demanded. "Respect is earned, not demanded. And your King he might be, but he certainly isn't mine." She turned back to the projected Aesir. "And even if he were, my vows to Loki supersede anything and everything else."

"Just who are you child?" Odin asked, seeming honestly shocked by her.

Silbhé seemed to straighten up at that, being barely above the five feet of height made her so much shorter than all the Aesir in the room (she was shorter than even us humans), and yet there was something about her that belied all that; that showed there was more to her than her stature, than her being human, so much more...

"I am Nightingale." She stated, entwining Loki's hand with hers. "I am Loki's wife and match."

It wasn't the first time she introduced herself with such words, just the day before she'd done it when faced with the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif, particularly when three men had begun effectively harassing the sorcerer (more than one person had been left in shock at the small professor standing up to men at least a foot taller than her, never backing down). It wasn't the first time she'd said those words, and yet something happened in that moment that hadn't before. Like something had snapped, I could see Silbhé's... Nightingale's body tense sharply for a second that seemed to last forever, a light of some sort flashed in her eyes, making them look odd and almost beseeching... it was just for a moment though, before her whole body went limp. Loki dropped to his knees, catching his wife in his arms even as he himself seemed to sag a bit.

"Brother!" Thor cried out, making to reach his brother, only to stumble briefly.

It was only a minute before Nightingale's eyes opened again, but when they did, it was almost like a lifetime had passed.

"Fintalëharyon..." Nightingale breathed out, her eyes seemed to almost twinkle as they met Loki's in that moment.

"Arwenamin..." The sorcerer replied, like it was some sort of code only the two of them could truly understand.

And just like that, everything changed.

 **xXx Darcy's POV xXx**

I hadn't the slightest idea how it happened, yet somehow I ended up becoming Agent Coulson's (in my mind I still called him Agent-iPod-thief, but on the outside I needed to be professional) partner, and as such a second handler for the 'heroes'. And it wasn't even just the Avengers anymore. While it'd started with them, others joined in the following weeks and months.

It was actually Thor who started the mess. The Big Guy apparently decided that with the danger as big as it was, it was only right to invite his friends to join us. Cannot say I liked them much. Fandral was obviously a ladiesman, and seemed to have trouble getting no for an answer, like he couldn't understand why any girl would say no to him... Coulson actually tried to make him desist through words, which made it somehow worse, as it became obvious he considered himself above all humans, simply for being Aesir. And it was then that I decided I'd had enough and tased him to kingdom come. That, at least made him stop, even if he didn't really respect me; at least he accepted that I wasn't as weak as he'd first thought. Sif also, for some reason, offered to teach me some moves in case he ever tried anything again.

Yet, that wasn't the real mess, not by a long shot. No, the truly insane moment was the next day, when Thor activated the little whatchamacallit and used it to call on Asgard. It was a disaster. At first I couldn't but be amazed by the imposing figures of his parents and the other guys there. I mean, there's a reason they were once all called gods. The enchantment only lasted until they began talking. They way they spoke of humans, of our influence on Thor... I was beginning to get really pissed off, when Nightingale went and ripped them a new one! Go girl!

It was totally awesome. I've always known that despite her being physically small, my friend had a lot of power inside; I mean, she's a professor, she teaches what she knows to agents! Even scary ones like Maria Hill and some other guys. But to see her actually telling those guys the truth of what she thought of them... it was so cool!

Then she fainted, and Loki seemed to fall too, and even Thor tripped. For a second there I really thought everything was going to go to hell! Of course, Sif getting all teary-eyed and embracing Loki like they're long-lost siblings didn't help any...

It took a while to understand what had happened. As it turned out, Nightingale was actually the reincarnation of some elven princess from a thousand years ago or something, Loki's first wife... whom he apparently was made to forget after she was killed by an Enchantress and he went totally postal in grief. Or so they said. I thought that Odin-guy had to be truly cruel to have done something like that, make Loki forget the woman he loved, especially since she came back. What if he hadn't known her? If they hadn't found each other the second time? Though apparently no one imagined such a thing could happen, that the princess, Tinúviel, would come back, that there was even a chance the two would find each other again...

Which was absolutely ridiculous, I had only known Silbhé for a year, and Loki for much less than that; and yet just looking at them it was obvious how much they loved each other, how tightly bound they were. It was obvious to me from the first time I saw them. So how could no one else realize it? After all, they were the so-called gods, they were the ones who knew things like soul-mates and magic, and bonds and reincarnation existed... I only saw it all as wishful thinking.

It took several days for Nightingale to recover her memories, and even afterwards she had a hard time with all of it. Coulson theorized it might be because humans weren't meant to deal with that kind of information, that maybe our minds simply weren't built for it. But was Nightingale still human after everything that had happened? I didn't know, and it was too complicated a concept to focus on, I wasn't science girl. I was assistant-girl... and apparently an Agent of SHIELD too.

In any case, that was just the beginning of the mess. Right as Nightingale seemed to finally be able to fully focus on things again, a group arrived. We were told they were... a name I couldn't pronounce, though they were mostly known as elves. Tall and so beautiful, all of them, even the men. They were lead by a couple, a man called Erynion, who said to be something called a Lord Protector, he'd apparently been Tinúviel's bodyguard back when. His wife was a sorceress called Lady Thenidiel. They were accompanied by several elven warriors as well as another sorceress, all ready to fight for their princess (because apparently my friend didn't have any past-life, she was once a princess and nearly a Queen!).

That was just the start. Coulson decided at some point it was a good idea to transfer a number of SHIELD Agents into the tower: There were the geniuses FitzSimmons, an engineer (Leo Fitz) and a biochemist (Jemma Simmons) who acted like they'd been a couple since forever (though no one knew for sure if they were or not). And then there were others like Grant Ward, Antoine Triplett, John Garrett and Sharon Carter who were specialists (field agents) who helped with training, while preparing to fight alongside such a wide array of individuals. Most seemed to have no trouble with that, though I didn't like much the looks Garrett gave a few of them sometimes. When we found out that Triplett was actually a trained medic that helped a lot too.

They were, in many ways, the true beginning of the Alliance... which by that point already included the Avengers Initiative, several Aesir Warriors, a group of elven warriors and sorcerers, and of course the Agents.

The next to join were the mutants, the team known as the X-Men. I knew a few things about mutants, hard not to seeing how I was technically one of them (though, for obvious reasons, no one knew that). I never actually attended the Xavier Institute, it wasn't necessary, as my 'gift' was a passive one, and only evident under very specific circumstances (like if I found myself under a particular kind of attack, as they would soon realize they couldn't hurt me). Though I'd never told anyone my 'status' and wasn't planning to, not unless I was forced to.

Still, nothing could have ever prepared me for the moment the four individuals entered Stark Tower (which, at some point, had become HQ for us all).

Charles Xavier, better known as Professor X, was on his hover-chair (which had actually been created by Tony Stark; as I later found out he also knew the professor, though for other reasons), in his usual three-piece dark suit and dress shoes; right behind him was Erik Lehnsherr, Magneto (or the General, as some of the students at the Institute called him behind his back), in a black turtleneck, kakis and boots. Behind them, side by side, walked a woman with cobalt blue skin and red hair, completely in the nude, and a white-eyed (blind) and silver haired one in a sky-blue suit; they were Mystique and Destiny (hardly anyone knew the real name of either).

"Charles!" Tony called loudly when seeing the group entering. "And Lehnsherr... and beautiful women whose names I don't know."

I couldn't help it, I snorted. Thankfully Coulson was present, for I didn't actually recover in time to approach them.

"Professor Xavier, Mr. Lehnsherr." Phil greeted them respectfully. "Ms. Mystique and Ms. Destiny. What brings you to Stark Tower today?"

"The tides of Fate have changed." Destiny said in an odd, almost haunting tone. "The Songbird has changed the tune, a new tapestry must now be woven, the fates of every world are now entwined and forever shall be. It all rides on the Songstress's vow..."

The precog seemed to sag the moment the last word was pronounced, might have even fallen if Mystique hadn't been by her side; she held her partner up.

"What the hell was that?!" Tony blurted before anyone could stop him.

"That was a prophecy." I answered before I could think better of it. "Destiny is a Seer, what some refer to as precog."

"And you know this how?" The millionaire narrowed his eyes at me.

I just shrugged, I really wasn't about to go into my own past (and genetic code), I'd done enough of that the other day, when I'd revealed all I did about my father... at least that had served a purpose, and it'd worked... mostly.

"It means that this Songbird, this Songstress, did something that changed what was meant to be." Phil began pulling the prophecy apart. "She did something that altered the future, and at the same time made it so now it's no longer just our world on the line, but all of them."

"Exactly." The two leaders of the mutants nodded at the same time.

"You understand then why it's so important that we find this person." Erik stated solemnly. "Before anyone else does."

"We know war is coming, Destiny has sees that much." Charles added. "We also believe it is important we find this Songbird before our enemy does."

"Though how they expect to find a single person without the slightest clue to her name or even country I haven't the slightest idea..." Mystique rolled her eyes.

"It might not be as hard as you believe..." I offered, not quite sure how to explain it.

In the end, I did not need to, as the answer filled the room a moment later. JARVIS had standing instructions that whenever Silbhé sang, he was to make sure all of us could hear her, he'd become an absolute fan of her voice. It just felt almost like fate, for her to have begun another right then:

"Where are the heroes  
In my time of need?  
Is my cry not loud enough  
Or have they gone all numb?"

"They just tend to stand  
Out of the rain  
Thinking but not acting  
That they're not to blame."

"Falling and crawling  
A fight to stand up  
Memory still haunts me  
In the dead of night."

"Over and over, I felt so small  
But one day I'll be stronger  
And you better watch out."

"I will overcome, your violence their silence  
Although it can't be undone  
I will overcome, knowing that I'm not the only one  
I will overcome, it's the only way to carry on."

And just like that, with a few words and a song coming from the speakers (and, we later found it had been re-routed from the music-room several floors down), the first alliance was made.

The second one was nothing extraordinary. At least not for me, since I had nothing to do with it. While the Fantastic Four had been retired for several years, after hearing of what was going on (the Richards' son was a student at the Xavier Institute) they'd agreed to go out of retirement and aid us in the upcoming battle whenever it came (after which they'd go back to their not-entirely-normal but peaceful lives).

The third allegiance went a bit better, though it was still nothing any of us could have ever expected. A couple arrived: a petite young woman (no older than twenty) with chestnut hair with honey colored highlights and cornflower blue eyes, in an off-white and sky-blue dress with shawl to match and sandals, who wore a silver diadem and choker; accompanied by a tall man with messy auburn hair and dark eyes in kakis a white-wifebeater, a tanned open vest and boots. As if their appearance weren't odd enough, their introductions through us all even more for a loop.

"I am Muse, and this is my partner and husband." It was the girl who spoke. "I am one of the leaders of the Secret Circle, a coven of witches and we're here looking for the God of Magic, Loki and his Songstress."

Few people had ever referred to Loki as a God of Magic, though in my opinion the title certainly fit, more than any other I'd ever heard attributed to him, except maybe that of God of Mischief.

"Who are you Miss?" Maria Hill, who'd been present that day, asked (or more like demanded). "And how do you know about Loki?"

"Like I said, you may call me Muse." The young woman reiterated. "I am a witch, should I make it any more clear than that?" I seemed to be a rhetorical question for she went on. "I had dreams... terrible dreams. War is coming, a war like none before. All guardians of this world must come together or the universe shall fall. I am here to represent my coven, as such it is only logical that I report to the one who'd best understand what me and mine are capable of."

And, just in case Hill had any doubts still, she proceeded to twist her hand before her, a small ball of fire materializing in her palm, fire which shone almost golden and did not burn her.

As if that were some kind of signal (or supernatural doorbell), Loki and Nightingale were standing in the middle of the Avengers main floor (bellow all our living quarters, and which had become like a reception area of sorts.

"Midgardian magic-wielders..." The sorcerer murmured in surprise, staring at the young couple. "I hadn't seen one in hundreds of years..."

"Good day my lord." The girl bowed respectfully to him. "My name is Cassandra Blake-Conant, though I am known as Muse. My partner and husband is Adam Conant. We're here to represent the Secret Circle, our coven... we're at your orders, sire."

Loki looked honestly baffled, not quite at the show of respect or ceremony (which apparently was to be expected), but at the fact that the girl was revealing true names and had just put her entire coven at his disposition.

"My co-leaders, Priestess and Huntress are back home with the rest of the Circle." The witch continued. "Like I mentioned to the Agent, magic has showed us through dreams that a battle approaches, and only with all guardians of this realm standing together will all the universe be saved. Therefore, here we are. Ready for whatever might come."

Her husband never said a word, just providing support and nodding every so often in a show of agreement; though that was probably to be expected if he wasn't one of the leaders (they were making a show of who spoke for them all, something not even Hill missed), genders were irrelevant in a coven, the leaders were chosen in very specific and traditional ways, and they were so for life.

It caused some friction with SHIELD, when Hill was prohibited from sharing the real names of any of the magic-wielders with anyone else, and the organization was as a whole informed they couldn't put any of them in the Index and, further more, the Circle would follow no one's orders but Loki's and Nightingale's. Also when they realized the arrangement made treating a bunch of people barely out of their teens on the same level as their highest ranking agents (most of which were twice or thrice their ages). When Thor explained them it was part of ancient traditions (many of which predated SHIELD, and even Midgardian society as a whole) and were to be respected, there was nothing they could do (in the end everyone knew the help would be needed, sooner or later, they simply couldn't afford to alienate any potential allies, regardless of how much the whole thing went against SHIELD 'protocols').

Others came forward. Two more magical covens: the biggest being one from San Francisco, they were all either siblings or cousins or in relationships with one of them; though the core was formed by three boys and six girls who all claimed to belong to the same magical lineage. Aside from them there was a group of four 'brothers' who hailed Ipswich Massachusetts. Most of them were in college and two of them were actually married, and while the girls had no power they still insisted to be taken in consideration as well.

It was my idea for the matches of heroes who had no superpowers or anything like that to become healers to the others. I knew Silbhé was certified as a paramedic, she'd explained she knew a great deal of medicine and first aid since her own situation and having helped her husband a number of times, getting certified had been a logical conclusion for her. And I couldn't help but think it might help some of the girls feel more useful, especially those who couldn't do anything else to help their partners.

After a good number of the members of the Alliance began living in the Tower (those who didn't have a place close enough or lives they needed to keep elsewhere), the Professor and Magneto sent a team to the Tower as well. All of them in their black-leather reinforced suits. They were to be on the front-lines the rest would either join or help from the sidelines as needed. I actually knew all of them already. The team was jointly lead by Wolverine, a light-eyed, dark-haired man with animalistic characteristics and his skeleton completely covered in adamantium (the hardest metal in the world) he also could pull out some claws; and his mate, Rogue, a young woman with dark-eyes and auburn-hair with an odd white lock with the ability to 'borrow' others' powers. The rest of the team consisted of Nightcrawler: a blue-skinned demon-like-looking individual with the power to teleport; ShadowCat could phase through walls, and help others do the same; Colossus, whose body covered in armor made of something like organic metal that was super-strong; Blink could create small portals; while Iceman's and Pyro's powers were obvious in their code-names.

There was some friction, of course. Though at the same time, there were some members of different teams who apparently couldn't help but get along famously, especially when they either shared powers or simply were compatible somehow.

There was one group though, that broke any idea anyone might have had about the kind of people we should be expecting to be part of the Alliance (and I'd thought we'd had enough of a surprise with all the magical individuals). It'd begun with the arrival of a young woman, somewhere in her mid-twenties, with honey-brown wavy hair and chocolate eyes in a dark turquoise top, dark tight jeans, black-leather jacket, black-leather low boots, and fingerless gloves that went almost to the middle of her forearms.

"Hello!" She called cheerily, looking like a college drop-out who might have gotten lost, though I knew right away it was a mask. "I'm looking for whoever might be in charge."

"My name is Darcy..." I told her approaching, trying not to give away anything, since I insisted on dressing the same as ever I knew no one would expect me to be an agent.

"Who are you exactly?" The younger brunette arched a brow at me.

"The one who shall decide if you ought to see the one in charge or just sent away the same way you came in." I answered with a bit more bite than intended.

The girl laughed, honest laughter, before proceeding to take a seat before me.

"I like you." She decided. "Which is why I'll tell you this, I know you're the one in charge, or at least one of them."

That put me on full alert instantly, I considered reaching for the electric-gun I kept beneath my desk (the moment Stark had seen my taser, and after realizing I really didn't like common guns, he had taken it upon himself to create something that looked like a gun but shot electric charges instead, and could even be regulated to do all from just shocking someone slightly, knocking them out, and possibly even kill). However, the mere fact that she hadn't moved an inch from her relaxed position made me believe she wasn't an enemy.

"Who are you?" I asked, eventually.

"You may call me Skye." She answered promptly.

"I may call you Skye..." I repeated, considering. "Is that your name?"

"It's the name I've chosen, and that's what truly matters." She announced, her tone going higher, showing it was somehow a sensitive subject.

"Very well." I agreed, it's not like she was the first person to take a new name, many did it. "What brings you here then?"

"I represent a group of... lets say very gifted individuals, who might be interested in joining the Alliance you've got going on here." She explained, straightening up and getting very serious. "I must clarify that they... we, none of us have any interest in being part of SHIELD, or Stark Industries, or any of the other groups that have joined you. We wish to remain independent. However, we're all quite willing to work with you and yours in order to make sure our world won't fall under an alien invasion."

"How do you know about that?" I didn't like it, and I was sure Coulson wouldn't either. "That's privileged information."

Classified or top-secret might be better terms for it. And while it was only to be expected for precogs like Destiny or some witches to know, she hadn't claimed any of that, or called for Loki (which all magic users did almost from the moment they set foot in the Tower).

"There are vulnerabilities in your firewalls." Skye pointed out, then clarified. "SHIELD's."

"You hacked SHIELD?!" I almost choked at the mere thought.

While I considered myself a hacker, and had done my fair share of things with computers (Thor's false IDs had only been the tip of the iceberg, really); I still couldn't fathom hacking SHIELD, couldn't imagine anyone doing it. At the same time, that explained how Skye knew about the upcoming invasion, the Alliance, and even my part in all of it. I would have to warn Coulson and hope that the Rising Tide or one of those other conspiracy groups hadn't done the same; if that kind of information came out the kind of chaos that would create would be catastrophic.

"Easy, I made sure no one else would be able to take advantage of those vulnerabilities." Skye seemed to have read my mind. "I'm not stupid, I know the kind of effect that kind of information out in the open would have. I will admit that I once worked with the Rising Tide... but that was a long time ago. Back then I didn't know, I didn't... I didn't understand. Now everything's different. I've learnt a lot..."

"And now you're representing a group of gifted." I finished for her, choosing to focus on what brought her to me, while one-handedly typing a message of warning to Coulson, he could go down on the IT guys and make them fix that problem.

"I am." She nodded calmly.

"Why you?" I couldn't help the curiosity.

With the magical covens it was always the most powerful, or eldest (sometimes both) which lead the groups; with the X-Men... well, even those who knew next to nothing about mutants were aware of the place Professor X had not only as an educator but also in the defense of mutant rights (even with those ignorant of the fact he was one of them), and Magneto... no one would ever forget what he'd done in San Francisco all those years before, it was an image that would remain in everyone's minds (and archives) to the end of time.

"Because I discovered them, for the most part." Skye answered with a half-shrug. "And even those I did not properly discovered, I was the reason they became a team... or at least that's what they normally say." Her eyes narrowed. "Also, if anyone here decides to play dirty, it's not like I would be a useful hostage anyway."

I was left speechless at that revelation. She was the one representing her group because, being human, she did not think she would be useful to us, if SHIELD decided to try an hold her hostage. It was a way to keep her team and showed how far she was willing to go to do that, how much she was willing to risk... I couldn't help but respect that.

"We have no intention of holding anyone against their will." I assured her. "Whatever SHIELD might or might not prefer is irrelevant for the most part. If your team do not wish to share your civilian identities with the rest, that will be up to you, we will all respect your decision. Stark has already made it known that anyone who joins the Alliance is under protection of SI, which means SHIELD cannot touch them."

The last thing they needed was to have Stark (whether as Iron Man or himself) as an an enemy.

It took a while, but after a serious conversation with Agent Coulson, Tony Stark and Captain Rogers, Skye seemed to decide it was alright to trust us. Tony in particular was very interested in someone who had been capable of hacking SHIELD; Coulson, Hill and Fury had been dismayed at the mere idea. I'd suggested they simply employ the young woman to reinforce their firewalls (it's not like it'd have been the first time an organization employed a 'black hat' and made them switch sides... it should have been easier, since Skye wasn't actually a black hat in any sense of the term) but with her being part of one of the gifted teams and especially since she refused to give any of them a legal name.

The rest of their team joined for training sessions eventually. Her second in command was a dark-eyed, very tall, athletic built african-american man with extremely short dark hair in his mid-thirties dressed in a black and dark-blue bodysuit and reinforced boots, as well as what looked like sunglasses with sports-style frame and pieces of armor on one of his forearms, part of his chest and back. His abilities were super-strength and endurance, he'd a veritable arsenal on him most of the time, and the sunglasses actually doubled as targeting-system as well as allowing him to see infrared and in the dark. He introduced himself as Mike Peterson, alias Deathlok.

After him was a man probably in his late twenties, short hair somewhere between dark blonde and light brown, eyes of an electric blue (which almost sparked whenever he used his powers), wearing a red sweatshirt, dark jeans, brown boots and tanned leather jacket. His ability was to channel energy, everything from static to outright electroshock; it was why his code-name was Shock, though his real name was Lincoln Campbell.

A third member of the team, whom we knew existed yet never actually set foot in the Tower was Cal Zabo, he was said to be capable of super-strength under very specific circumstances, though it was costly. For the most part he acted as the team's doctor... I also believed he might have trouble of some sort with the law, which was why he refused to enter the Tower.

The next one was a bit odd. Chan Ho Yin was a former citizen of Hong Kong with dark hair and eyes who usually dressed in a black and dark-red bodysuit of fireproof fabric and boots because he was pyrokinetic. The odd part was that Coulson knew him, the man had apparently been an active member of the Index, until his disappearance, several months earlier. As he explained it, Skye and Deathlok had rescued him when a group of people who called themselves Centipede kidnapped him and experimented on him; those same people were responsible for Deathlok's own abilities. It was how the pair had known they existed, and to keep an eye on them. When an old 'friend' of Skye's had given the man away to Centipede, the twosome had gone into action to save the Chinese man before he ended dead, they'd gotten there just in time.

It was the last two (or four, depending how one saw things) that truly cinched things. Everyone knew who Spider Man was, after the mess with Dr. Connors on OsCorp it was hard not to; the Goblin was much more recent, but still. The moment they first took off their masks to reveal a couple of blue eyed boys, the first brunette, the second auburn-haired, neither of which could possibly be any older than nineteen (and Spider Man looked like he might be one or two years younger than that). Learning they were recent high-school graduates just sealed the whole thing. Peter Parker was well known in some circles for being a science-genius, which called Tony's attention straight away, when he learnt about the web-shooters that the teen had made himself the millionaire was read to offer the boy a job right then and there. To which Spider Man's partner loudly objected, claiming to have found Peter first. And it was that the Goblin turned out to be none other than Harry Osborn, who'd recently inherited leadership of OsCorp, after the tragic death of Norman Osborn in his sleep, which had been long awaited in a morbid sense, as the man had been terribly sick for many years (though I was beginning to wonder if we might have missed something about that).

As if the introduction of those two hadn't caused enough brows to raise, it turned out they weren't alone, their girlfriends having insisted on coming along, offering to help in whatever capacity they could. Peter's fiancé actually, Gwen Stacy, was a genius too, in Biology and Chemistry, and quite willing to help in the labs; so she was sent to work with FitzSimmons. Mary Jane Watson wasn't a genius in any way (she was actually a theater actress), but was willing to help any way she could, and ended joining other 'hero girlfriends' in becoming certified as a paramedic.

The first time Nightingale joined the fight training all the Agents had given her a wide berth, one even commenting that they couldn't be expected to fight someone who looked like a child. In response she drew her bow and shot an arrow that grazed his temple just close enough to leave a tiny cut on his face, at such a degree to show that half an inch closer and he'd have lost his eye (and his life). No one looked down on her again.

Skye herself trained to fight too. She was a decent shot and pretty good at hand to hand. She got along famously with Nightingale and Loki, most of the magicals and a few of the X-Men; she also seemed to get along well with the SHIELD Agents, at least at first. Until she noticed the dark looks Garrett would give some of the gifted at times, even those of her own team, she didn't like that, and decided to put some space between them.

"Hey, don't go." Ward said, taking her by the arm to stop her.

"Let go of me." Skye said suddenly, in a voice as cold as ice.

"It's alright." He insisted, still not letting go. "I know Garrett can be a pain at times, just ignore him, we all do. And it's not like it was against you..."

"I said, let go of me..." Skye seemed to be almost vibrating with anger or some other repressed emotion, her hands tightening almost convulsively.

"We like you here, you should stay." Ward was not only holding her anymore, but he tried to pull her back. "Should stay with us normal guys, I know you're not one of those freaks..."

Skye stopped trying to reason with him. Right when it looked like someone would intervene (either Coulson or one of the members of her own team), she went into motion herself. In a fluid move she twisted her arm just enough to take hold of Ward, pulled on him, unbalancing him, before swiftly twisting and flipping him over her own hip, dropping him harshly to the floor before pinning him down with his arms on his back and her knees on top of them.

"They Are Not Freaks." She hissed into his ear, though loud enough for anyone to hear. "They are my team... no, they are my family. They are humans, gifted humans, but humans nonetheless. They are only some of those who have come to this Tower, willing to fight to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You are here because it's your job, they're here because they know it's what's right. And you will respect them, all of them, or I will make you pay." She pressed a bit more on his back. "Have I made myself clear, Agent?"

None of us could actually hear his answer, but it seemed to be to her satisfaction, as Skye let him go, standing swiftly and walking to her team (her family) leaving a wheezing Agent Ward to get up on his own time (not even the other Agents helped him).

So, even if Skye didn't seem to be gifted (with anything other than her computer skills), she did fit quite well in the Alliance. After that day everyone had come to accept and respect her as the leader of that particular team (even the mutants who seemed to have such a hard time accepting baseline humans, like Magneto and Mystique).

I myself trained some, Agent 13 (Sharon Carter) and the Black Widow herself helped me with my hand to hand (which wasn't easy at all considering I was quite 'top heavy'); while Coulson taught me to shoot better, and even though he didn't seem to really understand why I hated normal guns so much, he never commented on it either. I loved the ICERs when FitzSimmons created them.

And so we all kept preparing for the war that was to come.

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

A number of women woke up hours before dawn, all of them with the same image locked in their minds and the same words on their lips.

"They're coming..."

In the hour before dawn the insomniacs, those who woke up early and those who had trouble sleeping, knowing the confrontation that was approaching and the danger they were all in, could hear the whisper of a song as it reached every corner of Stark Tower:

"I remember tears streaming down your face  
When I said, 'I'll never let you go'  
When all those shadows almost killed your light  
I remember you said, 'Don't leave me here alone'  
But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight."

Those lines fit Nightingale so perfectly, the vague memories she'd gained of the day she died. And yet that wasn't her focus right then, not really, instead her mind was on the fear on who might be lost in the war to come... at least she knew she wouldn't be losing her Maverick, and he wouldn't have to see her die again. No, if one went, both did, and that was that.

"Just close your eyes  
The sun is going down  
You'll be alright  
No one can hurt you now  
Come morning light  
You and I'll be safe and sound."

Tony Stark wasn't sleeping, he'd been sleeping less and less as the preparations for the battle progressed, his mind always coming up with something else he could be doing that might help save lives; either his own, that of his team, the other teams, or just civilians in general. Still, he was in bed, just sitting there, with Pepper curled up around him, Faced with the fact that he might die, nothing could ever be more important than spending even those few hours in the dark, holding her tightly against his own body. Viriginia Potts, Pepper, the woman she loved more than anything else in the world, more than his own life. The genius, millionaire, philanthropist, former-playboy promised himself that if he made it through the battle he would ask her to marry him.

"Don't you dare look out your window darling  
Everything's on fire  
The war outside our door keeps raging on  
Hold onto this lullaby  
Even when the music's gone  
Gone..."

Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter stood before each other in the gymnasium, sparring (or as close as they could to that, considering their difference in strength). It was odd, especially for the Captain, who still remembered WWII like it'd happened just a little while before. The War to End of Wars... well no, actually that was supposed to be the First WW, not like it had worked like that anyway. They still had wars... and they didn't just involve their world anymore, no, what was coming next would be so much bigger, so much worse... Steve wished he could have his old team with him... not that the new one was bad, even considering how much Stark got on his nerves (most of the time on purpose), but they were good, he just wished for them sometimes, for the ease they'd had, the familiarity... at least he had Sharon. Most days that was enough.

"Just close your eyes  
The sun is going down  
You'll be alright  
No one can hurt you now  
Come morning light  
You and I'll be safe and sound."

Bruce was in the middle of the room Tony had fixed especially for him and his meditations. It was bare except for a couple of mats on the floor, and through hidden speakers came a variety of soothing sounds (which he programmed). He'd been listening to water running down a creek... at least until Jarvis had switched that for the quiet song of Loki's wife(with Bruce's permission). He was no longer meditating, not really, but he was still there, when a pair of arms wrapped around him. The arms belonged to a lithe, black-haired, blue-eyed woman. His wife, his Betty... at first he'd had a hard time believing how easily he'd taken Tony's offer to have her brought in, but from the moment she was in his arms he couldn't imagine her being anywhere else. No matter what else might happen, no matter himself or the Oth... the Hulk, Betty belonged with him (them).

"Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh  
La La (La La)  
La La (La La)  
Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh  
La La (La La)"

The two resident spies weren't as demonstrative as other couples in the Tower (or elsewhere), most still didn't really know they were a couple at all. The only one they'd ever told was their handler, and that only because the man was also their friend and was only right for him to know. No promises were made, no reassurances sought, the two were experienced enough to know the kind of danger coming their way, the odds they were facing. Still, it was what they did. They might have once been spies, but the Avengers Initiative, and especially the Alliance had made them so much more, had made them Warriors and, in a sense, had also made them human again. Just for that, they would never regret anything, no matter how things turned out in the end.

"Just close your eyes  
You'll be alright  
Come morning light,  
You and I'll be safe and sound..."

Darcy woke up just in time to listen to the last repetition of the chorus. She slipped off the bed as quietly and stealthily as she'd been taught, picking up the white sweatshirt near the end of the bed and putting it on to cover her nakedness at least some. She considered having it washed later and returning it in secret, before changing her mind, she just might keep it, a reminder of the best night of her life, the first time she knew without a doubt that a man saw her as more than just ass and tits. She was beginning tp pick up her clothes from around the room, when a voice interrupted:

"You don't have to go, you know?" It was him, he was awake.

She hesitated for several seconds, pieces of clothing in her hands, one more still on the floor.

"Darcy..." He began, quietly.

"Phil..." She replied automatically, still not quite believing she was calling him that, could even do that; yet she could remember quite vividly the very different tone in which his name had escaped her lips hours earlier, amidst a breathy moan.

"Come back to bed." He said simply.

And that was all she needed, really, as she dropped the clothes on the floor and went back to cuddling into him. They would still need to talk, about them, about what had happened (what had been happening for a while really, even if they'd refused to see it for the longest time). But there would be time for that. In that moment all they both wanted was to lie together for a little longer.

"Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh oh oh..."

And so a new day began... war was coming, it was almost upon them.

* * *

So a lot of preparation and some fluff in the end... I couldn't help myself. I hope you liked it. For those who might have seen the latest movie... ignore all of it! I'm keeping my pairings!

In case it wasn't made clear (I'm honestly not sure), the scene narrated by Darcy is meant to take place over a lapse of time, either months or years... I never actually made up my mind just how long, whether a year, three, five, etc... that was mostly on purpose, as I decided to leave it up to your imagination. It doesn't change anything on the grand scheme of things. The players are the same.

I know the times don't fit, especially concerning Skye and her team... I don't care! To be honest, while I was working out the Alliance in my head I tried to find a way to get her involved, because I love her character, but if AoS didn't happen, then she was never recruited; then I remembered that she would meet Mike Peterson anyway, and he would be a reason for her to get involved in things anyway. I'm leaving it purposefully vague regarding her family and the Inhumans for two reasons: first, I don't think it's really that important for this fic, second, with Darcy being the one narrating that part, she wouldn't know anyway. I may give you more in the next part, but that depends on how things work out (I haven't written a thing).

So, following on that line of thought. This is one of the few times where I'm posting a work as I write it. That means this time I'm taking suggestions on what you would like to see in this fight. Specific characters, particular team-ups, you let me know and I'll try to fit it in.

Hope you all liked this and please comment!

See ya!


	3. Chaos

I am insane! Beyond insane probably... though I'm quite sure everyone who reads me knows that already... if you don't... I have no idea what to say... and if you do and you're still here, then you're probably as insane as I am so what's the hurt? (Laughs like a crazy person...)

Anyway, the point. As you could have probably imagined things got a bit crazy once I got writing this part. I had so many characters involved... and while at first I intended to just keep most of them in the fringes, they insisted on having their turn, on telling their own story. So this ended with a lot of baggage from the X-men movieverse (all movies except DoFP are fair game), I made Cherik quite clear here, as well as other pairings. Also, my version of Skye meeting the Inhumans and the eventual showdown (those who've watched to the end of the second season of AoS know what I mean), with a Skye who was never an Agent of SHIELD... yet, that one was tricky. I still left a few things vague, while trying my best to keep faithful to the characters... which means that if you haven't watched the last few chapters of the 2nd season and you intend to, then this is SPOILERY.

There will be some clarifications for this you'll see in this chapter, at the end, so please, take a look at those.

And, that's that, so here we go!

* * *

 **Chaos**

Some people need order to survive, others only truly flourish in chaos.

The morning when the Battle for Earth, and in a lesser degree for all the Realms, took place, began like any other. It'd been three days since a number of precogs all around had woken after dreaming of the coming army, some only of the warriors on their way to the planet, while others were able to get glimpses of the actual war.

Nightingale had been among those who'd had the dream, one of those who'd seen the most with the exception of Destiny of the X-Men and the Oracle sisters of San Francisco. No one knew how or why, even in her life as Tinúviel she'd never been a seer, that was her mother; the only visions of sorts she'd ever had, had been those related to her pregnancies.

Since it was the end of the week, Skye had gone to SHIELD HQ in the outskirts of New York to drop the weekly report on her team their training and the way they worked with the teams they'd been assigned to that week. Aside from the supernatural teams taking turns to work together in different groupings so they could get used to the ways their abilities could mix together, Skye's team had taken to mainly working with one team of SHIELD Agents who seemed be the most open-minded regarding their special abilities and the like. It was the team formed by Agents Bobbie Morse, Lance Hunter and Antoine Triplett, with FitzSimmons providing backup and all kind of gadgets.

The short meeting that morning went as well as could be expected. Her team had proven capable of following orders from 'baseline' (they didn't like referring to them as humans) Agents like Sharon Carter or Phil Coulson, as long as said Agents showed them respect. There had been a situation with Victoria Hand, who looked down upon her team and so they didn't like her; and their attempt at working with Agent Rumlow and his heavy-duty team STRIKE had been an absolute mess. But aside from that they were doing quite great. It'd been decided that Agent Coulson and the team he'd hand-picked would be their primary partners so-to-speak, as they worked together best.

Skye was on her way out the place, when she got distracted by something odd for a moment and ended crashing against another Agent. The older woman, with black wavy hair to her shoulders and sharp blue eyes actually seemed to look Skye up and down, as if trying to find out who she was exactly. And it was that, considering where she would be doing, Skye had dressed in black jeans, a black shirt, boots and her black-leather jacket that morning, and the ensemble made her look a bit like the rest of the agents around her.

"Miss Skye..." The older woman stated once she recognized her.

"Agent Hartley." The brunette nodded at her.

Agent Hartley's team was one they'd attempted to work with. It had seemed to go pretty well, until Lincoln and her happened to hear the comments one of the agents was making about them, his doubts... his fear about them. Skye had gone ahead and requested not to work with them again, adding a note to Agent Coulson (AC, as she'd taken to calling him) to recommend the team not be paired with any gifted group, for everyone's peace of mind (though making sure not to say anything that might seem like gossip or negative criticism).

"Just Skye is fine, ma'am." The brunette said absently, still mostly focused on whatever it was that had distracted her.

"In that case call me Izzy." The woman replied. "Is everything alright Skye?"

"I... I'm not sure..." The younger woman admitted.

She knew something was off, could feel it inside, but had no idea what it was.

"You know." Izzy seemed to decide to change the topic. "I've been meaning to talk to you. Your team and mine, we worked together that one time, and I though we did alright, but then we were pulled out of the pool. Vic says it was your recommendation to Agent Phil Coulson..."

That definitely called Skye's attention onto the woman. As she tried to guess if she was angry, or just curious about why she'd done what she did. It seemed to mainly be the second, so Skye decided to answer honestly:

"I heard you talking to one of your agents after our training session." The brunette said. "He expressed... reservations about working with gifted. Felt unsettled about our powers. I say this not against your agent or yourself Ag... Izzy. I simply did not believe it to be a good idea to continue as we were, for any of us. Your own agents would have never been able to do their best if a part of their minds were always focused on us, on doubting us, on feeling... unsettled. I expressed it might be best to part ways."

They both knew it hadn't been all the Agents expressing themselves that way, but one. But there was no need to put anyone in evidence. And deep down Agent Hartley probably knew it'd been for the best. In any case, she did not insist. Though that might also have been because she noticed how distracted Skye was.

"Is everything alright?" The older woman asked, not for the first time.

"No." Skye answered honestly. "There's something off, something in the air... I can feel it."

Izzy would have questioned what exactly she meant (as far as they all knew, Skye wasn't one of the gifted, not in any supernatural way, at least). But right then, a sound akin to cloth tearing, only much, much louder, and then the sirens began blaring.

"Level 7, Defcon 1." Maria Hill's voice was heard even over the sirens, through every single speaker. "All Agents to your positions. This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill. This is the real deal ladies and gentlemen. We're at war. The chitauri are here! I repeat Level 7, Defcon 1. We're at War!"

Everyone was moving the moment she announced it wasn't a drill; most even before that. There had been a drills, every few months, since the news had come out that an alien army was on its way and would be attacking one day. And not only SHIELD. With help from Stark Industries, OsCorp, and later on other organizations, various drills had taken place across all mayor cities in several countries. Civilians getting used to answering the sirens and evacuating. They probably had grown tired of it at some point, especially all those who, by virtue of not being involved with SHIELD or any other member of the Alliance in any way, hadn't the slightest idea of the danger their planet was in. But it'd been decided it was better that way, so as not to risk world-wide panic and chaos on the streets.

In any case, it would hopefully help protect civilian lives.

In SHIELF itself, and various military and intelligence organizations across the globe, the countries had been progressively raising the defense readiness conditions in the time since Loki's original 'attempt' at an invasion (Though only the highest ranked in SHIELD knew any of that, most only knew the sorcerer and his wife as part of the Alliance, practically honorary Avengers).

After Hawkeye and Dr. Selvig had been rescued and the Tesseract retrieve, they'd raised the situation into a Defcon 4, as part of the preparations. Once the Alliance was well on its way, and with the suspicion that trouble might come at any moment, it'd gone to Defcon 3. It'd reached Defcon 2 just a few days before, the morning all precogs had revealed their dreams. And right then, it had gone up again. To a level it'd never before reached. Not in all the history of the US. Because War was no longer a chance, but a fact.

Skye rushed out of SHIELD HQ alongside Agent Hartley, a hand on her ear as she got in touch with her team on their private comm channel. It'd been decided it was better that way. Her team, the X-Men, and one other whose name she couldn't really remember and were quite new each had comms with their own private channels, with team leaders having possession of a second comm with access to SHIELD channels in order to coordinate. The various covens preferred to use magic to communicate among themselves, though the leaders too had SHIELD-issue comms. Skye finished giving orders for Deathlok to take leadership of the team (they'd practiced, so it wasn't that much of a surprise), while she would be staying with SHIELD, as it was easier; she'd just stopped talking, when a huge explosion seemed to rock the earth beneath their feet. Several agents actually lost their footing.

"Holy shit..." Several agents cursed at the same time.

Skye and Izzy turned to see what they were looking at about the same time. It was a creature, a huge flying monster. Like a mix of a ship of some sort and a living being, with a metallic exoskeleton; the aliens, the chitauri jumped off it to attack, and it was flying.

"Dear spirits..." Skye gasped, not quite believing what she was seeing.

"Well, don't you all just stand there gaping like idiots." Hartley called with all her authority, calling order. "Get moving people! Shoot that thing down!"

Skye had serious doubts that thing could truly be shot down, but still followed the rest of the agents, raising her own gun and using it to shoot at the thing. Of course handguns did nothing at all. But the scariest part was when, two agents working together managed to pull out a rocket-launcher and shoot at the thing, and even that wasn't enough. There was an explosion, and small pieces of the exoskeleton came off, but for the most part nothing changed. The thing was still flying down the street at them, taking pieces of buildings and vehicles as it moved.

The agents began backing away, fear and self-preservation slowly taking over, when Skye made her choice. It wasn't an easy choice, all the opposite, but she knew it was the right one.

"Tell your people to back up a little." She told Izzy.

"What...?" Hartley was still shooting, and couldn't fully understand.

"I know it sounds absolutely crazy, but I need you to tell your agents to stand back." Skye said in her most solemn voice. "I'll handle this."

Izzy was going to tell her she was crazy, but then it was too late, Skye was walking ahead. Izzy gave the order, more afraid that one of her agents might shoot Skye by mistake, than truly believing she could do anything. She saw the younger woman put her gun away, before taking her finger-less gloves off methodically, letting them fall on the street as she kept walking.

Skye kept walking until she reached the middle of the street, more or less, just a yard or so ahead of the agents that had, thankfully, stopped firing at Hartley's order. She took a deep breath, clearing her mind like she'd been taught then she raised her hands, and pushed.

To all the agents, it was like Skye was just standing there, hands extended, grasping into the air. Then, right as some of them were beginning to whisper about her possibly being crazy... it was like some kind of great shudder, and the huge creature stopped in its tracks. Skye's body trembled visibly, her arms shaking for a moment before she strengthened her posture, and everyone could only stared because... had that slip of a girl really just stopped that monster just by standing there with her arms extended?!

For several seconds no one moved. And then, it was Mack (Agent Alphonso Mackenzie), at Izzy's side, who spoke:

"That won't be enough." The dark-skinned man stated roughly.

"No, it won't." Izzy nodded, though she hadn't the slightest idea what to do.

And then, Skye was taking the decision out of their hands, again. She gave a step, then another, and another. She walked slowly, approaching the monster.

"Skye!" Izzy yelled, forgoing the comms completely. "What the hell are you doing?"

"This isn't enough!" Skye answered, yelling too. "I cannot hold him back forever, and even if I could, it's not enough. It needs to be taken down completely."

Izzy did not ask how she thought she could do something like that. How anyone could do it... she could have never imagined someone being able to do what she'd already seen the young brunette do. Even with the mutants in the Alliance. She'd heard rumors of the things Magneto was capable of: lifting submarines out of the sea, moving the Golden Gate bridge to a spot of his choice (or had been, when younger); the things Phoenix had been able to do as well, everything from raising people in the air, a place, a house... to tearing a person into pieces, pulling cells apart... It was amazing, and terrifying (and the reason Mack and so many others couldn't help but feel unsettled and even afraid when in close contact with the gifted).

Skye reached the monster then, she touched the front of its snout and then she pushed. Someone in the back asked if she was planning on pushing him somehow... but that wasn't what happened. Not at all, instead, the creature seemed to shudder once, twice, then it began actually shaking, quite violently... and then it seemed to reach its climax, as it fell into pieces. It began small, pieces of its skeleton coming off, practically being shaken off, then it got worse in the next few seconds, until suddenly, like an enormous jigsaw puzzle, the monster came apart.

The pieces crashed onto the ground heavily enough to make the earth shake for a moment. And then Skye was stumbling back. Izzy ran to her, holding her up.

"Just what the hell was that?!" Hartley demanded as she helped the girl backed from the monster.

Skye snorted through her panting. It'd been a long while since she'd used that much power for anything, and never in such a way. It'd been more exhausting than she ever imagined possible. At the same time, it was good to know she could do it.

"That was awesome!" Mack announced as he joined them, surprisingly not an ounce of fear on his expression as he looked straight at Skye. "Tremors...?"

"Just call me Quake." She told him, and smiled.

 **xXx**

Mary Jane was on stage, during the rehearsal for her newest play, when the sirens began blaring out on the street. And not just that, her own cell-phone began ringing, a tone she'd assigned specifically to work as an alarm. She was off the stage and fishing the phone out of her jacket before anyone could say a word.

"Yes... I'm at the theater, will be out in five minutes." She stated before hanging up, already putting on her jacket.

"Watson!" The Director. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Do you not hear the sirens?" MJ was honestly confused when noticing that no one other than her had so much as moved.

"Yeah, but it's just another stupid drill." The Director said with a scoff. "I'm tired of letting those ridiculous things interrupt my work. You cannot pause art. So come back here and return to the rehearsal."

"This is not a drill!" MJ cried out, horrified by the lack of worry shown by the man. "This is the real thing. How can you be so callous!"

"You're just a naïve girl who doesn't yet understand, but you will." The Director stated. "Now go back to that stage, or kiss your part goodbye."

"I'm not going back." MJ said, straightening up, no longer the young amateur actress, but the beautiful soon-to-be-wife of the owner and CEO of one of the greatest companies in the country. "Those sirens are real, and I have a duty to complete now."

As she said that she slipped an ID on a chain over her head. It was SHIELD issue and had been given to all the civilians who'd insisted on helping when the time came, as paramedics, rescue leaders, or anything else that might be necessary; most were, like her, romantic partners of a hero (like Gwen Stacy, Pepper Potts-Stark, Betty Banner, Jane Foster, Sarah Wenham-Danvers, Kate Tunney-Parry) and a few others who were such close friends they insisted on being involved (like Happy Hogan, Peter's aunt May, Nightingale's aunt Kathryn, Gwen's own family -though they though they'd joined for her, not quite knowing why she was really there-, Erik Selvig,).

"What does that mean?" One of the other actors asked, curious.

"It means I'm one of the civilian volunteers working with SHIELD." She answered honestly, turning to face the Director again. "You complain about the drills, but they were meant to prepare you all for what we've known was coming."

"How would you know anything?" The man sneered at her. "A slip of a girl like you..."

"I may be young, but I'm not the naïve little girl you insist on seeing me as." The redhead told him. "My name is Mary Jane Watson, and my fiancee is Harry Osborn..."

"You're the head of OsCorp's future wife?!" Several of the girls shrieked. "Why didn't you ever say anything?!"

"Because I wanted to make my own way as an actress." She answered honestly. "I wanted to earn my parts for my own talent, and not my future husband's name."

"How could one like you ever meet someone like him?" The Director still didn't believe him.

"I didn't sell myself, if that's what you're implying." She hissed at him, before pulling her phone out again, and showing them a picture from her gallery, of her Harry and their two best-friends, the day of their graduation. "We were in the same high-school. "

"Those are Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker!" One of the boys stated, then clarified. "I worked as an intern in the low floors of OsCorp, everyone said they were geniuses, working in some of the biggest and most top-secret projects the company had."

MJ was about to comment about that, when her phone rang again, she picked up immediately.

"Hello?" It was Harry's chauffeur. "Mark. Yeah, I'm still inside. Be right out. … Have you heard about the others? … I see. I shall call Harry once I'm at HQ then."

She picked up her bag, and was halfway to the door, when someone called to her.

"Just what's going on?" The youngest of the girls inquired.

"War." She answered quietly, walking out before anyone could ask her more.

The last thing any of the young actors who knew her saw of her, was the moment when she slipped into the black Mercedes waiting for her outside.

 **xXx**

Professor Charles Francis Xavier-Lehnsherr stood by the glass wall of Tony's penthouse floor in the Tower. The original plan had him staying with his husband, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr-Xavier in the Institute in Westchester; but in the end he just couldn't, they couldn't. So a second X-Men team, the senior team, had joined the juniors (though they weren't that young anymore, all in their mid-twenties at least), formed by Beast, Havok, Storm, Cyclops and Marvel Girl (Jean refused to keep the name Phoenix after her brief loss of control and actions as Dark-Phoenix... only the fact that the professor had managed to miraculously return to them convinced her of not quitting and giving up completely). Mystique was out too. Leaving the Professor, Magneto and Destiny in the Tower to help coordinate things.

The junior team were on evacuation duties mostly: with Nightcrawler, Blink and Shadowcat using their respective abilities to get out those who might end up trapped in the destruction caused by the battle going on. Colossus helped cover up for those Shadowcat saved, as she didn't have the power to just send them straight to safe point, unlike the other two. Pyro and Iceman gave them cover with their powers. Wolverine and Rogue had pretty much allowed their more wild sides to take charge and jumped straight into the fight.

"Stop fretting Charles, I can almost hear your thoughts, and I know you're not trying to project them." Erik stated in a half-teasing tone.

"I don't like being in here, while they're out there, risking their lives." Charles admitted quietly.

"It's not like you, like either of us would be of much use out there." Erik pointed out ruefully. "Lets accept it Charles, we've gotten old."

"Eighties is not that old..." Charles pouted, but even he knew it was.

And really, they didn't actually look that old. Charles was in his early eighties, with Erik being a few years older than him, though they both looked to still be in their sixties, at most. There were other mutants, those who'd reached the zenith of their power while being much younger, their twenties or thirties, who seemed to almost not age at all. It was apparently part of the mutant gene. Their bodies registered when they reached their peak level, and that was taken as their golden years, allowing them to stay in that period for much longer than baseline humans. It was the case of others like Storm, Nightcrawler, Havok, Beast, even Cyclops. Jean had aged, as sort of side-effect of the darkness of her 'evil' alter ego, but still look young for her age. However, both Erik and Charles had 'lost' their powers for whatever the reason for more than a decade, and that meant that even when they got them back, it took them longer than most to reach the highest level of their powers, making them age more and faster than they would have otherwise (not considering the effect Auschwitz, certain events and drugs might have had on them).

"We're not the men we once were Charles, or who we once might have been." Erik admitted. "If we hadn't taken so long to see our mistakes, and corrected them... especially me."

"We each had our faults, but we did right by each other, and by our children, eventually." Charles tried to reassure him. "You know the boys were really happy when you and Raven decided to come back to us, for good, finally. Especially you..."

"Maybe." Erik wasn't quite sure how much of that he believed, Charles tended to be too much of an optimist regarding some things. "But truth is they didn't need me. They stopped needing me a long time ago... I wish I'd been here..."

"We cannot undo the past." Charles told him softly. "But we can make sure they have better lives than we did. Which is exactly why we're here..."

Erik nodded, taking a moment to steal a kiss from his husband (he wasn't one for PDA, but the only other person in the room was Destiny, who wasn't really seeing them... technically, and in any case, it wasn't like she wouldn't be aware of things anyway).

"A Leviathan is coming..." The precog announced a minute or so later.

"The Secret Circle alone won't be able to stop that." Charles murmured, worried.

"No, they won't." Erik agreed grimly, before moving for the door.

The Secret Circle, the group of twelve young human witches and warlocks lead by a triumvirate formed by three girls code-named: Muse, Priestess and Huntress were the ones tasked with guarding Stark Tower so it could be used as refuge for the civilians in the area who weren't able to take the tunnels to a more secure zone (the other covens had each been assigned a different spot: like OsCorp Tower, a hotel whose owner had offered to serve as refuge and the biggest hospital in the area).

"Erik!" Charles called, mentally guiding his hoover chair after his partner. "Love, where are you going? What are you doing?"

"To see how much these old bones can still take." Erik drawled. "To show whoever might be watching that I'm still Magneto."

The older of the two mutants (and former leader of the Brotherhood) walked to the edge of Tony Stark's viewing deck. Where he extended both hands before him and began focusing his power. Briefly touching with his power everything metal in the tower, the surrounding buildings, the cars on the street, the city of New York, and finally the earth's magnetism as a whole (he'd always wondered if he'd be able to truly manipulate that, maybe even invert the polarities, but never really tried it)... before turning all his focus onto the flying ship/monster approaching them, the one Destiny had called Leviathan...

"I'm here love." Charles didn't even consider trying to stop him, just stood by his side, like he'd been doing since their reunion a decade before, like he wished he'd never stopped doing since 1962... "Just remember, the point between Rage and Serenity..."

"I know, mein schatz (my treasure)..." Erik murmured back, and let loose.

 **xXx**

Betty, Pepper and Happy were in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, having just finished with their bimonthly visit to the private medical center that catered to the victims of Extremis and their families. It was a project Pepper and Tony had undertaken after Killian had gone after them a few years before, intending to use Pepper to force Tony to finish the formula. What he hadn't counted on was on the newly forming Alliance and what quite a few gifted were willing to do to pay back the woman who'd pretty much opened the doors of her home to them. It hadn't ended well for Killian, or for Maya Hansen... but at least they'd gotten to most of the 'test subjects' in time to help them, as well as their families, before catastrophes occurred.

The trio were just stepping out of the building talking about their plans, which consisted of returning to the Tower and having lunch with their children (Robbie Banner and Vika Stark), who were at the childcare in the tower (it'd been Pepper's idea, to help all the employees who had young children) and hopefully their husbands (if they managed to pull them out of their labs); when the sirens began blaring.

There was almost no warning when suddenly a Leviathan was going over their heads (it would eventually get quite close to SHIELD HQ, only to be taken down by Skye, revealing herself as a gifted herself, code-name Quake). Chitauri leaped off the creature-ship, landing on the walls of nearby buildings and even the street.

"Code White!" Pepper practically yelled into her cellphone. "Seal the building! Make sure everyone inside is safe!"

Happy rolled his eyes but didn't try to tell her to get inside herself, he knew that his boss would be wanting to get to Stark Tower. And that was supposed to be her post, according to what they had prepared for. Never mind that they'd have to get through a battle-field to get there.

Even getting to the car proved to be harder than anything they could have ever planned, when three chitauri were suddenly in front of them. Happy immediately engaged one, managing to keep up with it, if barely. Betty didn't know what to do about the other, which ended with a deep slash in her left forearm. When Pepper moved in to try and help her, using her modified-taser as she had nothing else on her that might be useful, it was definitely enough to distract him, just enough for Happy to take it down. But then they were left with the third, and no defense.

Right as Happy was beginning to contemplate something beyond insane, some...one or something seemed to come at the creature like a man possessed. The moment they saw him all three couldn't help but think of the Hulk. Except the figure was much smaller, barely a bit bigger than a normal man, though his body was deformed in an almost grotesque manner, he was also much, much stronger than a normal human being; as was evidenced by the way he took hold of the chitauri and practically ripped him in two.

"Ya alright Missus?" The deformed man asked in a gruff tone and with a rather odd accent.

"Yes, fine." Pepper assured him, still trying to recover from seeing what he'd just done.

It was at that point that the man seemed to notice the blood on Betty's arm. He made to approach her, then stopped when she flinched away from him. He let out a breath (which sounded odd coming from someone his size), then reached into the pocket of his half-ripped lab coat, pulling out a small package containing a bit of gauze, bandages, clips, a small vial filled with alcohol and another with some kind of disinfectant; all in all a kit to treat wounds.

"'m a doct'r." He said as an explanation. "Only... I can't exactly treat peopl' when 'm like dis."

"So you're not like this all the time?" Betty asked, softly.

"No." He said. "Tis is not what a am, but what I ave ta be."

It took several seconds for them to truly understand what he'd just said. He didn't seem to mind, as he was already moving away.

"Wait!" Pepper called. "At least tell us who you are..."

"Names no matter." He stated, without stopping. "You can call me Mr. Hyde, though."

And then he was running, throwing himself at the next chitauri, and the next. Neither woman could keep him in their sights for long, as Happy focused on getting them into the car and away as fast as he could. They'd been lucky in that moment, but he wasn't going to risk it. They needed to get to the Tower.

 **xXx**

Peter Parker was in his advanced physics class, taking notes quite fast, regretting the fact that it was one of the few classes he didn't share with his girlfriend and unofficial fiance (he was only missing the ring), but then again, he was studying for a double degree in biophysics, while Gwen was going for biochemistry.

He stopped mid-sentence, while his professor kept on with his lecture, as his senses abruptly screamed at him of incoming danger. In an instant the young man's body was completely tense as he got ready for fight or flight. None were necessary in the end, instead he could hear his phone ringing. Skillet's 'Hero'...

"Mr. Parker." The professor called authoritatively. "I believe you were in attendance during our first day, when I stated how much I do not like hearing cellphones during my class, and explained in great detail what would happen in I heard any ringing."

"I'm really sorry Professor Gonzales." Peter apologized. "I swear I put my phone in vibrate when I came in, I only..."

He broke off as his mind caught up with the only reason (aside from him forgetting to mute his phone, which simply wasn't possible) for his phone to be ringing... it was a special function Stark had set in, to make sure that wherever they all might be, they would know when the time came to fight. The invasion was starting.

The system functioned much like a tornado warning, which gave people up to thirteen minutes to get to a safe place before the tornado actually hit. They didn't actually know how much advantage they might have (not like they could test it). But the device, created by Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Loki Friggson, detected the moment energies began gathering in the atmosphere, the kind of energies that interacted directly with the abyss (in such a manner as to create an Einstein-Rosen-Bridge or, in the specific case they'd been preparing for: a chaos-portal.

"Mr. Parker!" The professor, a very bright physics-engineer, demanded his attention.

He didn't get the chance to say more than his name, as suddenly the sirens (from the school, and those on the streets) began blaring.

Peter was about to suggest they all get moving when an explosion, sounding way too close for his comfort, distracted him. He followed a few other students to the windows, where he could see a huge flying monster passing a couple of blocks down (it'd eventually get close enough to Stark Tower that Magneto would call on his powers to stop it himself). That wasn't the worst part even, no, the worst part were the monsters that had jumped off it and were running/crawling/jumping in their direction right then.

Some of the girls began screaming right then, guys rushing to the doors, looking for an escape, but Peter just knew it wasn't going to be enough.

"Damn it all to hell!" He cursed loudly, as he kicked of his shoes.

"Mr. Parker maybe you should get away from the windows." The professor suggested.

He was one of the few not rushing out, intending to make sure his students were safe, or as much as he could considering their situation.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible sir." Peter answered, almost sardonically. "I'm afraid right not I don't follow your orders."

The man didn't get the chance to ask what the young man thought he was doing, as he pulled off first his shirt then his jeans. It was until the brunette was jumping straight off the window that he fully-processed what he'd seen in those few moments: the bright red and blue spandex with black and white details... the mask the pulling on even as he threw himself off the building. His genius student was Spider-Man?!

Spider-Man for his part, began swinging from one school building to the other, as fast as he could, trying to fight off the chitauri, keep them away from the school, and especially from the students. He used webs to blind them, to keep them away when he could, but it wasn't easy. Then, right when he feared he might have run out of luck, as a chitauri was heading straight for a pocket of terrified students huddling close together in one of the lunch areas, in between two of the buildings. However, the alien never got that far, for right as it was about to, it impacted into something that wasn't fully visible at first. A web, created in between the two buildings, thick enough to hold the chitauri back; the bio-cable was also still 'fresh' enough that the chitauri half-adhered to it.

"Gwen..." The hero breathed out, a bright smile beneath the mask.

There, on the roof-top stood his beloved, wearing a lab-coat over her usual jeans and top, boots, her blonde-hair in a ponytail shining golden under the midday sun. On her wrists was the second set of web-shooters he'd created; they'd originally been meant as an emergency set, in case his main ones were destroyed, like had happened in the battle against the Lizard; but since learning of the upcoming invasion Gwen'd taken to carrying them with her, in case of an emergency. And that had just proven to be a very good decision.

So, together, Spider-Man and his girl, took up the defense of ESU and its students.

 **xXx**

The moment the sirens began blaring, everyone on Stark Tower was on the move. Agents, as well as the X-Men who'd been staying over, the members of Skye's team (sans Skye herself, as she was over at SHIELD HQ) and half or so of the Avengers take positions on the streets surrounding the Tower itself, forming smaller groups with those who complement them best. Nightingale, Loki, the elves, Black Widow and Hawkeye bypassed all of them and headed straight for the south end of Central Park.

"Just why are we here, exactly?" Black Widow inquired, curious.

For all answer they all watched as Nightingale tied a cord on her quiver (she carried the bow and quiver of arrows the Ljósálfar had gotten her, her own old ones, from a lifetime before), hung her unstrung bow on a specially design part of the strap that held the quiver to her back, and then walked straight to the trees.

"Just what is she...?" Hawkeye didn't get to finish the question, interrupted by his own gasp of surprise at what happened next.

Nightingale went to stand beneath the lowest branch she could find and after pulling on it a bit, seemingly testing its strength, she held tightly, using it to pull herself up, then on and on, until she was climbing the tree with hands and feet like it was the most natural thing in the world. She was wearing a tight-fitted short violet dress, dark-leggings and soft cloth shoes (magically reinforced, to protect her feet properly without being too thick she couldn't move her feet as she wished, according to Loki); her hair was all pinned up on her head, so as not to get in the way.

"I don't know why I'm even surprised..." Erynion muttered with a good natured sigh.

"What do you mean?" Widow asked, confused.

"A long time go, a lifetime really, it was quite common for the princess to go missing whenever she'd had a particularly trying day." The dark-haired elf explained. "Most never understood how she did it, they never noticed when she left, never knew how she managed, or where she went."

"But you did." Hawkeye guessed.

"It took a while, but eventually I learned." He nodded. "Tinúviel always did love the trees. Then again, we all do..."

As if those words were some kind of signal, most of the other elves present immediately began climbing other trees. They were all taller than Nightingale by a wide margin, but from what had been explained at some point, their bodies were lighter, less dense than human ones, which allowed them to move as they did. Nightingale had been reborn into a smaller but denser body, and it sort of evened out, allowing her to still do the things she usually would.

"I still think that this whole reincarnated-princess shit is a bit too sci-fi for my tastes." Hawkeye stated a bit crudely.

Erynion shook his head. He knew most humans couldn't understand. His own princess seemed to have trouble dealing with it some days. There was no proof that it was her, she didn't look the same physically, not at all, she wasn't even the same race... but her voice, her soul, the light of the stars in her eyes, and the very name Loki had chosen for her. They were all clues pointing in the same direction, as far as those who'd known her were concerned: Nightingale of Midgard was Princess Tinúviel of Alfheim and Asgard reincarnated... also, the fact that Loki had regained his lost memories of her, of their time together at the same time she gained them, helped too.

It didn't change much in their current time and situation, not really. Nightingale still was who she was. Though the revelation seemed to have somehow allowed them some leeway with Odin Allfather and everyone else in Asgard; and she'd 'remembered' how to do things like fight hand to hand, shoot a bow and communicate in a number of other (older) languages (climbing trees was something she did in both lives).

"What's the plan then?" Widow inquired, all business.

"Archers to the trees, obviously to allow them for a better vantage point." Erynion stated. "Though one of us needs to state with each of the spell-weavers, to guard them."

As expected, he would be staying with Thenidiel, not so much for her position as the most powerful elven spellweaver, but because she was his match. In the end Black Widow chose to stay with the other spellweaver (she was more effective on the ground, fighting directly, than on the trees and from a distance). Loki too, stayed on the ground, though he kept moving, trying his best to follow his beloved's moves, even if she was much higher than him.

 **xXx**

Deathlok pulled his hand away from the comm in his ear at the same time his targeting systems and all the weapons fixed on him came on.

"You heard the boss-lady." He called to the other members of his team. "We're to make our stand right here and fight. Shock, you'll be my second."

Everyone agreed, as the young man in the red shirt, khakis and tanned leather jacket, with sparks already lighting up his fingers, went to stand on his right. Scorch took his left. The Goblin was the last to join the formation, staying on the air, on his glider.

"Where's Spider-Man, Goblin?" Deathlok asked, noticing the absence.

"He and his girl are busy protecting ESU." Goblin replied, avoiding saying any names, like they always did when in-suit. "A group of aliens saw fit to attack there. Thus far they managed to keep them in line on their own..."

"I'll send a group of Agents, if that's alright with you." Darcy offered.

They were standing quite close together, a few blocks away from Stark Tower.

"That would be good, I think." Harry agreed. "My girl is in-route to OsCorp Tower, where she'll take over the volunteers there."

"Hey guys!" Shock interrupted them suddenly. "Less talking, more ass kicking!"

As if to emphasize his own words, the man chose that very moment to shoot lighting from his hands, managing to kill one chitauri straight down and stun another. There was no need for any more talk, they all went into motion.

Soon enough they discovered a few of them had certain advantages. Like Scorch, who could get hot enough to half-melt the exoskeleton on the Leviathan, they were still too big for him to handle on his own, but when teaming up with Pyro, the two could take down the creatures. Iceman made sure the fire didn't extend anywhere else and that there was no one underneath when the remains of the things fell.

"If you're one of us, why aren't you with us?" Pyro asked when there was a lull in the battle.

Scorch looked at the younger-man with a raised brow, seemingly not quite understanding what he'd meant with that.

"He means that if you're a mutant, why didn't you attend the Institute..." Iceman began.

"Or join the Brotherhood." Pyro finished for him. "They would have loved you. I mean... man, I can manipulate fire, but you can actually create it!"

"I'm not a mutant." Scorch answered simply.

"You a meta then?" Iceman asked, curious. "Like the Spider-guy and the Goblin?"

"It's more complicated than that." Was all Scorch said.

He'd no idea what his leader might have planned, once the battle was done, if she'd planned anything at all. He knew others hadn't agreed with them joining the growing Alliance, but at least he and Lincoln could see it was necessary. Besides, Skye had saved them from the catastrophe their old leader had been guiding them to (could he still say that when he'd left the Tribe before any of that had ever happened?). Everyone had agreed that Shīmǔ was leading them wrong, in a direction that would have brought them nothing but chaos and death... if the lady hadn't interfered all might have been lost... still, it wasn't easy to change the minds of a whole tribe, especially not when they'd spent decades, whole generations, used to things being a certain way.

Something unexpected happened right then, there were several shots from one of the chitauri's weapons in their direction. Iceman used his powers to freeze most of those weapons, making the metal brittle enough to break easily. However, they both were so distracted they didn't see the shot coming from another weapon, in a different angle. Scorch reacted instinctively, pushing the two young mutants to the side even as he called on a rush of fire to destroy the weapon and its wielder; it was too late, though, to stop the attack in its tracks. The energy was such that it went straight through the flame-armor-of-sorts that formed around his body, piercing him straight through the chest.

"Scorch!" The two mutants screamed in horror.

They'd seen death, both of them, how could they have not when they'd been involved with Alcatraz Island in '06? It was still quite traumatic.

"What the hell happened here?!" Shock demanded as he arrived in a rush.

"Scorch is dead!" Pyro blurted out.

"What...?" The meta saw it then, he was almost sick.

"Shock, on your left!" Deathlok called through the comms.

The meta turned to the side, but before he'd the chance to call on his powers, it went down under a storm of fire, the next one with fire.

"We're not losing anyone else." Iceman stated solemnly.

At his side, Pyro nodded in the same tone, and then they were off again. One member of the Alliance had fallen, as long as it was in their power, no one else would.

 **xXx**

Antoine Triplett and Sharon Carter were running side by side, shooting chitauri down as fast as they could, looking for any civilians who might still be trapped in the area. The X-Men were working on getting people to safety as fast as they could, but they just couldn't be everywhere at the same time, no one could. Just then, they heard screaming from people in an office building half a block away from them.

"Shit!" Triplett cursed.

And Sharon knew why, not too far away from them was one of the huge flying monsters, a Leviathan, the X-Men had taken to calling them. By the way it destroyed things, even if it didn't go straight for them, or the building full of civilians, it was quite likely that the damage and loses would be great.

"We need to be something." The black man stated, though even he knew there was nothing they could really do, not with the time they had.

"We might be able to help." a voice from behind them said suddenly.

The two agents spun around sharply, weapons in hand, though not firing quite yet. What they found was not what they were expecting. Two young adults were standing there: the woman with straight auburn hair to her shoulder-blades, green-eyes and tanned skin in brown pants, a dark-gray loose top, dark low-boots and an off-white jacket; though the man looked even stranger: short graying hair, tanned skin, in a forest-green button-up shirt, jeans and brown long-jacket, he was also eyeless.

"Who are you?" Sharon inquired, trying very hard not to stare at the point where the man's eyes should have been.

"It's alright." He stated softly. "For you to feel unsettled by us, to be curious. We're not your enemies. We're here to help."

"Who are you?" Sharon insisted.

"She insisted we used code-names." The man reminded his partner before answering Sharon's question. "I am Link."

"Call me Replica." The redhead said simply.

"We need to get those civilians out of that building, before that thing gets here." Triplett knew it was insane to trust people they didn't know, but they had little choice.

"We'll take care of that." Link announced, turning around.

"How?" The two agents asked at the same time.

"Like this." Replica announced, as she began running for the building.

The two agents could only watch in shock as, where there had been one woman, there were suddenly two, then three, and so on.

It was a simple plan, the Replicas would split, looking for civilians through every floor, when one found some, she would 'call' Link (part of his power was to be able to find them), who then would teleport to her and get the civilians out, on and on, until they got them all out. Outside, the two SHIELD agents took on the task of guiding the people to the closest subway entrance, several yards away, it was the safest route away.

"Why had we not seen you before today?" Triplett asked one of the Replicas, curious.

He wondered quietly if she was the original, if any of them could be considered as the original, or they were all the same. Not like he was willing to ask, it was unlikely she'd answer, it was probably considered quite personal, and he could end up offending her, which he wasn't about to do considering how much help she and her partner were being.

"We were not part of the team that chose to come work with SHIELD." The woman answered with a light shrug.

"Why not?" The agent insisted.

"We did not agree with the lady on working with government agencies." She replied. "The last time agents of any kind got anywhere close to us... it didn't end well."

Triplett (and Sharon, who was close enough to listen) could hear what wasn't being said as much as what was. There was more than just the two of them, yet they weren't wearing the kind of suits the X-Men wore, and didn't wear any of the tokens the various covens did; the only other gifted aside from those, were Skye's team...

"And you agree now?" Sharon inquired, choosing to ignore the implication of there being more of them, for the time being at least.

"We still do not trust you agents, we probably never will." Replica admitted after a while. "But we accept that, in order to keep our planet safe, we sometimes may need to work with people we don't like, or trust."

Nothing more was said on the topic, soon enough the building had been vacated. Just in time for the Leviathan passed by right then, practically destroying two floors of the building, the last civilians running for the subway stairs as crystal-shards and pieces of plaster and metal rained around them (nothing on them, as Link created a sort of dome above them in the last moment, which worked like a shield, kept them safe.

"Come with us?" Sharon offered her hand to them. "I'm sure there will be other places where we could use your help."

"The lady would want it." Link murmured thoughtfully.

"Well do it." Replica agreed.

And they were on the way. Ready to help protect as many people as they could.

 **xXx**

The battle was going well, for the most part, there were some loses on the side of the Alliance, though certainly not as many as on the side of the aliens, and they were trying very hard to keep it that way. As the battle progressed, the team's moved. Once all civilians were out of the battle-zone (the Professor made sure of it), those who'd been working on helping them, turned their efforts fully to the fight, which helped too. Then they began working in closing the are of the battle, pushing the aliens together, freeing zones and allowing them to team-up with others. Even the agents who'd been so unsure at the mere thought of having so many gifted around seemed to learn to accept them as the battle progressed, some even began to trust them.

"This isn't going to be enough." Nightingale stated bluntly at some point.

She was sitting on the low branch of a tree, which was about head-height for her match, as she took a break (and worked on salvaging what arrows she could).

"Got any ideas?" Loki asked calmly even as he conjured yet another dagger and threw it at a chitauri getting dangerously close.

"Maybe, though I don't know if you'll be willing." His beloved admitted.

"What do you need me to do?" He asked, wondering if he should be afraid.

"Stop holding back." She whispered softly yet pointedly.

For a moment he didn't quite know what she meant, until he felt his beloved nudging mentally at a certain corner of his psyche which he usually kept under lock and key.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." He murmured quietly.

"We both know you're not a monster." She stated. "So try a different one."

"What about your people?" He tried to stall.

"They're no longer my people, they stopped being my people long before I even died in my last life, so that one doesn't count." She stated. "And regardless, in this life I was your wife first. You will always come first for me..."

"I know." He admitted.

"What is it you're really afraid of?" She whispered, making sure no one else heard.

Truth was, not even Loki knew, not for sure. A part of it was having believed for so long that his Jotun nature made him a monster, even when she'd tried to convince her in the last few years, it just never seemed enough. And then he'd regained memories long lost, and it all had gained a new depth. The truth about the Allfather... his Father's plan and why he hadn't put in into effect, his family's love and acceptance, and not only theirs... Sif and Erynion already knew, they had found out in what could probably be considered the worst possible circumstances (when he was half lost with pain and grief after his match's death). Others didn't know, but then again, it wasn't like he'd ever cared much about what others thought.

Sensing her Maverick had made up his mind, Nightingale fixed her quiver of arrows and bow into place, before jumping off the branch and straight into his beloved's arm, sliding down his body before allowing her feet to touch the ground.

"You did that on purpose." Loki half-grumbled half-moaned.

His wife just smirked mischievously.

"I'm so locking you up in our bedroom for a week straight once this is over." The Silvertongue announced with a leer.

"Only a week?" His match drawled provocatively.

"Hey, you two!" Darcy called to them even as she evaded one chitauri and shoot her taser-gun (high enough to fry) at another one. "This is time to fight, not to have eye-sex!"

The comment, blunt as it was, was enough to make the two focus once again on what was important. Loki took a deep breath, and as he let it go his skin began changing, first getting paler, then gaining a blue teeth, dark markings... ending with his emerald green-eyes turning blood-red and coal black.

"What the... shit!" Hawkeye cursed abruptly.

Many people were staring at Loki, and the tension in the elves was particularly sharp. Until Nightingale went and stood on her tip-toes, cradling her beloved's blue face in her bare hands before kissing him, a short, tender kiss.

"How can you touch him?" The younger spellweaver (not Thenidiel) asked, awed.

"He's my match, and I am his." Nightingale answered simply, as if that were enough (and with the Ljósalfár, she knew it was).

"The rest of you, don't touch his bare skin when he's like this." Erynion added for good measure.

"Iceman, heads up!" Nightingale called loudly, realizing what her beloved was about to do, a moment before he did it.

Loki spun around, throwing his arms out and suddenly their corner of the park, along with the street before them and several yards on every direction were covered in ice.

"Man!" One of the younger agents complained as he slipped and fell on his ass.

Several more stumbled, but most managed to regain their balance with a little effort.

"What's the point of going all Frozen on us?" Darcy quipped.

"Cold makes the metal brittle." Phil answered as he used the butt of his gun to hit a frozen alien, it fell into pieces. "It makes that easier."

"Then I'm all up for it!" Darcy announced. "Come on Lokes! Let it Go!"

Loki scoffed but upped the cold anyway. Iceman took that as a signal and summoned an ice-armor of sorts around his body, which helped his powers. And then they were off.

The chitauri began falling much faster after that. The chitauri, when realizing the ice was as good as a death sentence for them, tried to avoid it, only to find their escape routes all blocked by Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Spider Man, Goblin, Quake, Deathlok, the Thing, the Human Torch, Blink, Storm, Marvel Girl, Havok, and every other heavy hitter from the various gifted teams.

It'd almost become a game to some of them, especially the youngest members of the Alliance, as they practically slid down the iced streets, hitting everything in reach with whatever weapon they had on hand.

Nightingale was laughing gleefully. She had no more arrows, but they weren't necessary either, she just kept using her bow (which was strong enough) to hit too. She has doing quite well until something happened, no one was quite sure what. The reincarnated princess slipped, and if her Maverick hadn't teleported to her side in the nick of time and caught her before her head hit the hard iced ground.

"Nightingale!" He cried out, turning back to his Aesir skin out of sheer worry.

"I'm alright..." She murmured, slipping a bit into elvish, half-unconscious as she was. "I just... I think... I'm cold..."

"No, you're not." Loki stated rather than asked. "My love..."

The hazel-eyed girl let out a breath in a quiet 'oh...' of absolute surprise... before her eyes closed and she fell limp on Loki's arms.

"Nightingale!" He practically screeched.

"She's alright, Prince Loki..." Thenidiel murmured, approaching, like all other elves having no trouble at all walking on the slippery ice.

"My lady Thenidiel..." Loki whispered, voice broken in worry. "What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing's wrong with your match, Prince Loki." Thenidiel assured him softly. "She just seems to have missed something quite obvious."

"She said she was cold." Darcy commented quietly.

"True." Erynion agreed. "Yet the cold has never hurt her, not in this life, or the last, because of her match to Loki."

"Like I said, she missed something that should have been obvious." The she-elf stated.

"And what's that?" More than one person demanded, having had enough of the word-games.

"She's pregnant." Thenidiel announced with a beatific smile. "Congratulations Prince Loki, in a few more months you will be parents... again."

Loki had no words with which to reply to that, he just embraced his unconscious wife tightly, kissing her hair with a reverence few had ever seen before. He stayed like that for a little while, before processing the other thing that had been mentioned.

"She's cold..." He repeated quietly. "But I just turned into a Jotun, I'm too cold to help her..."

It hurt to even admit that much, but in the end helping his beloved was much more important than his pride, it always would be.

"If you don't mind." Pyro called, approaching slowly. "I could be of help."

Loki nodded, signaling for the young man to approach. Pyro was still holding a small flame in his hand as he'd been using it to shoot flames at any chitauri he could (their numbers were lessening every minute). He turned the flame on himself, warming his whole body, without actually putting himself on fire (he wasn't the Human Torch, thank you very much)

Loki placed his beloved in the mutant's arms delicately, making sure not to touch the younger man, so as not to cause a shock of temperatures. In no time at all Nightingale's skin began regaining her rosy tone (she'd gotten paler throughout the battle), her breathing easing down from the near pant it had been in before. And, as her body finally settled, Loki was capable of sensing her properly, the detail he somehow hadn't picked up on before... the life growing inside his beloved... a soul he was sure he'd felt before.

"Meril..." He breathed out, remembering with near-painful clarity the name his eldest daughter, Helena, had told him she and her nana (mom) had chosen for the new baby, before the tragedy that took both of their lives, that turned Helena into Hel.

"Guys, I don't mean to interrupt or everything, but I think the portal is closing." Quake called to everyone else right then.

"How do you know that?" Mr. Fantastic asked, squinting at the portal. "I don't see anything to indicate a difference and...

"I can feel it... I think." The young woman interrupted him. "I think I felt when it opened too."

"So that's what had you so distracted when we were at HQ!" Hartley called from a side, remembering quite clearly how unfocused the woman seemed be earlier.

"I think so, yes." Quake nodded slowly.

"Guys, the portal has begun to close." Jane Foster's voice could be heard through several of the comm channels.

"So, it's over then?" Shock guessed. "We won."

A number of the fighters, particularly the youngest, began cheering and celebrating their victory, until something completely unexpected happened.

"Guys!" No one knew for sure who called it. "We have an incoming nuke! Coming due east!"

"What the... but we won!" Several began complaining.

They'd defeated the enemies, why then had a nuke been shot? It didn't make any sense... except, for a few of them, it made perfect sense. It's not like it was the first time something like that happened to them...

Iron Man made his choice then, he wasn't waiting for someone to give any orders. He knew what he could do, what he was gonna do, and what it was likely to cost him, he was still ready to do it. And then...

"Blink!" Rogue called, full of authority.

"I'm on it!" The blue-eyed mutant with pink-highlights in her hair called back.

She ran to an empty spot, from where she shot one arm out, just a few feet ahead of the bomb, before throwing the other high, in the direction of the portal. The nuke went into one of her 'holes' and came straight out of the other, and through the chaos portal.

"Thor, Storm, we need to get that portal closed now!" Coulson ordered.

They really needed that, before the nuke, or anything else, came back out. The two mentioned warriors were on the move instantly, and they weren't only ones. Quake did what she could, though at such a distance she wasn't quite sure how helpful she was being, still, she tried.

With a sound akin to a sonic bomb being detonated, the portal closed; the last thing anyone saw through it was something big (they had no idea what) blowing up. Then everyone broke into wild cheering and celebrations.

Among it all, Nightingale's eyes fluttered open.

"Fintalëharyon (Trick-prince)..." She called in elvish.

"I'm here, Arwenamin (my lady)... He replied in the same language.

"I saw her." His love told him softly, as she moved from Pyro's arms to him. "I saw our daughter, she's so beautiful. Meril..." She noticed the eyes of so many on her, and switched to English as she added. "I saw our Rose..."

 **xXx**

While some of the 'heroes' had been all for marching straight to Fury, wherever he might be, the moment the battle was finished, and demand explanations for the nuke that had been fired into Manhattan; a few managed to convince them to wait. Pepper, the Professor, and some of the older witches said it was better to make Fury go to them; while the expert at computers, like Darcy, Skye, Tony and a few others believed it was better to have all the cards in their hands before the confrontation took place.

It happened three days later. The remains of the aliens had long since been swept and disposed of (and the heroes made sure there was nothing left at all). In the previous years SI and OsCorp had made sure to create a fund meant to help with repairs and restorations after battles (they hadn't phrased it like that, but the point was the same) so there was money already in place to begin working on fixing everything up. There had been no civilian casualties aside from a few minor wounds when people had gotten a bit too hysterical during evacuation. The only loses of life were among members of the Alliance, and even among them they were blessedly few.

The only true conflict had happened the day after the fight. Arrangements were being made for those who'd passed away, when they found a SHIELD Agent trying to 'take a piece' of Scorch's body, he already had a vial of blood.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Deathlok practically roared at the man. "That does not belong to you!"

"Technically it belongs to no one." The Agent stated. "Though it should belong to the world. The kind of power, he possessed, the kind of weapons..."

Shock, who'd rushed upon hearing Deathlok's shout, entered the room that served as morgue right then. He reacted instinctively upon seeing what was going on, shooting a bolt of lighting at the Agent, destroying the samples he'd recovered already, and burning him badly.

Things only went from there. When the man, Agent John Garrett, tried to present a formal complaint, he found no one on his side. Even other Agents who'd expressed concerns in the past, about the gifted (like Victoria Hand and Robert Gonzales) chose to stand by the Alliance.

"It's that monster's fault my subordinate is dead!" Garrett snarled at one point.

The body of Grant Ward had been discovered in the battle-field hours after the battle ended. He'd been burnt to death.

"The least I'm owed..." Garrett continued his rant.

"You're owed nothing!" Deathlok cut him off.

"Ward got exactly what he deserved, death." Quake said, voice full of hate. "He tried to kill Pyro and Iceman! I wonder if he didn't do that under your orders..."

That left everyone speechless. Garrett didn't even get the chance to try and deny it, as an image appeared in every screen, footage of a security camera, which showed Grant Ward picking up the weapon of a dead alien, and firing it at the two young mutants when their backs were turned, as they were focused on dealing with other enemies. Only Scorch had noticed his shot, and having no time to warn them, did his best to protect them, though it cost him his life in the end.

"I warned your man what would happen if he ever tried anything against me and mine." Quake told Garrett in a hiss. "He's just lucky Scorch killed him... I would have done much, much worse. And just in case it isn't cleared just yet. You try anything, you'll be finding out what exactly I'm capable of, understood?"

As if to prove a point, she pressed a finger to Garrett's shoulder, just for a handful of seconds, it was enough. The Agent stepped away, holding onto his aching shoulder before turning away. Quake knew his kind, he knew that some day, some how, he would try to get back at her, back at her people; she would be ready.

No one moved a muscle until the man was well a distance away.

"Guys, you need anything?" Pyro asked as he poked his head in, his voice breaking just a little as he realized just whose body was there. "I'm sorry."

"You've nothing to be sorry for Pyro..." Quake assured him softly. "Scorch made his decision, and if he believed you and your friend were worth it, I'm willing to believe it too."

"St. John." The boy said softly. "My human name, it's St. John Allerdyce."

"It's a pleasure to meet you John." She chose to return the favor. "Call me Skye." She seemed to ponder something for a moment before speaking again. "How hot does your fire run?"

"How hot do you need it?" The mutant asked in turn.

She didn't answer him, not really, her eyes turning to the body still on the slab was answer enough, John understood what she wanted him to do.

There were no ceremonies. They weren't necessaries. The rest of Scorch's team arrived quietly, as well as Iceman (who asked permission to be present, to be able to say thanks one more time). Then Shock produced a small spark (John had lost his lighter in the fight), which Pyro took and turned into a flame, he focused his powers then on turning it hotter and hotter, until the fire was almost white; and once it was ready, he poured it straight on Scorch's body.

Skye used her own powers to make sure that the fire would only burn Scorch's body (it was hot enough probably to even melt the metal slab it laid on); while Iceman ran a refreshing current around the room, as it was beginning to feel as hot as an oven.

When the body was reduced to ashes, those were collected by the team. They were planning on taking them to China and spreading them there, in the place Scorch... Chan had called home for most of his life.

It was a solemn occasion, all in all. By far the most unorthodox funeral taking place in those days. Garrett's actions also gave a new level of tension to the 'meeting' that took place two days later (though, no one had seen Garrett since... they never would again, though no one would ever find out about the man who decided the Agent was a risk to his daughter, and as such, he couldn't be allowed to live...).

Professor X and Magneto also approached Quake at some point during those three days. She'd been talking to Deathlok and Shock who, recognizing the mutants wanted to have a private chat with their leader, put some distance between them, making sure no one would interrupt.

"First of all." The Professor stated very seriously. "My sincere condolences, miss, for the loss of your team-mate."

"Your family." Magneto added with a nod.

"Thank you." Quake replied with a respectful nod. "You wished to talk to me."

"We did." The professor. "It's about your powers, yours and those of a few of the members of your team."

Quake didn't need to hear more to know who he spoke of. It was quite easy, for those who knew what to look for, to realize that a few of them were quite different from the rest. Spider-Man and Goblin were technically qualified as metas, or enhanced (depending who you asked), Deathlok was an enhanced through and through; but Scorch, Shock, Replica, Link and her... they were different, and that was no secret, not really.

"We're not mutants, if that's what you're wondering." She told them straight out.

"You're not metas either." Magneto stated. "I'm sure of that."

"No, we're not." She seemed to think about if for a moment, before elaborating. "What we are, it is in our blood, so-to-speak. However, unlike mutants, with us it's not about reaching a certain age and gaining our abilities. While we are all born with the potential, only a few ever get them 'activated' to call it something."

"How is that possible?" The professor didn't understand.

"According to the legends of our people, a long, long time ago, gods came from the skies, they called themselves Kree." The girl explained softly. "They found Earth and wanted to create an army out of the humans. They took a few and experimented on them. Something happened, none of us know what. But it caused them to abandon the experiments and leave. Those who'd been experimented on did not seem to be any different... but then a new generation was born. They looked normal, until something happened, a device left behind by the Kree activated, and the children were suddenly all different. It went from there." She took a deep breath. "At some point they began training, preparing the children, while trying to make out who were the best possible candidates for the change, those who would be able to accept it without going insane, or dark. It wasn't easy. It was also supposed to happen when they were young enough to adapt, but old enough to understand what was happening. It didn't always work out."

"You weren't like that." Magneto stated, it wasn't a question.

"No." She admitted quietly. "The change was forced on me, sort of, in an attempt to push me into joining their tribe. As well as to accept their plan to make it so Earth would belong only to the Inhumans, no one else."

"And how was that supposed to happen?" Magneto inquired, seemingly intrigued.

"The terrogenesis crystals, which are used to cause the change, the mist they create, it not only activates the Inhumans' powers, it also kills any non-inhumans that come in contact with it."

Magneto had no words for that. No one but his partner knew it, but truth was he couldn't help but think of his own old wish for mutant domination. It was the reason why he'd asked the question, wondering if another race of gifted would have achieved what he hadn't. And then, realizing what such triumph would have meant for him, for his Charles, their children... he suddenly realized what was so wrong about such plans.

"Inhumans?" The professor asked, curious.

"It's what our ancestors called themselves." She shrugged.

"Their plan failed, I supposed." Magneto guessed.

"Yes of course." Quake nodded. "At first I simply refused to take part in it. It was at that time that I met those who would become my team. Then Jiaying tried to force my hand using my own team, I wasn't about to allow it... Things happened... I was the only one who walked away from that confrontation. There were some of the Inhumans who didn't like me after that, not for a long while. Jiaying had been their leader for so long... Shīmǔ, they called her, it means 'teacher mother' in Mandarin." She let out a breath. "Even though most of them understood that what she wanted to do was wrong. They still didn't like what I did... some couldn't even grasp the idea that I went against her... Especially after everything she did to protect me, when I changed outside of their traditions, without their blessings..."

"Who was she to you?" The Professor asked softly.

"She was my mother." Quake revealed.

The truth was, as usually happened, more complicated than that. The conflict had been between her and Jiaying, but no one knew that someone else had intervened at a crucial point. In the end it hadn't been her that killed the former leader of the Inhuman, but her father, Jiaying's own husband... who chose to honor his promise to his beloved wife, of protecting their daughter, even against said beloved wife. But Skye had kept his involvement a secret, knowing those who'd been most loyal to Jiaying, like Gordon, Alisha and Yat-Sen would have hunted him down, killed him, for doing such a thing. So she'd taken that burden instead, just like he took the burden of the kill itself from her.

The mutants had no words to say after that.

 **xXx**

Nick Fury knew, from the moment he went through the door, that something was most definitely off. After three days he'd realized that, for whatever the reason, if he wanted to talk to the Avengers and to all the other non-humans who'd been involved in the battle against the aliens, he would have to go looking for them. He had the reports submitted by the agents who'd lead teams on the ground, like Isabelle Hartley, Sharon Carter and Bobbi Morse; he'd also heard rumors of outrageous claims Garrett had been making, considering some of the metas; never got to confirm or deny that one though, as the Agent had gone missing.

Maria Hill hadn't liked the idea, thought that him going looking for them, gave them power, and that just wasn't right. Fury knew she was probably right, but even then, he chose to do it. And of course Maria followed him.

The first signal something just wasn't right (well, not the first, but still) was when he suddenly heard JARVIS's AI in the speakers of his quinjet, giving him instructions regarding landing, and prohibiting anyone but him, Hill, and as many as two agents of his choosing from getting off the aircraft. Their route had been fully controlled (and no doubt monitored too), before being lead to what until recently had been an empty floor bellow the living area of the Tower. It had been transformed so half of it was full of cubicles, while the other half housed the biggest conference room one could imagine. And even before Fury and his people entered it was already more than half full to capacity.

The Director had noticed (of course he had, he wasn't an idiot) that some of his Agents had never returned to SHIELD HQ after the battle. With Barton and Romanoff he could pass it off as them wanting to stay around their team (though before the creation of the Alliance he'd have never imagined them growing close to anyone outside their little group and Coulson... in that moment there were actually rumors that they might have married in secret sometime in the last few years). Coulson could also be easily explained as choosing to stay with the Avengers, while those he had hand-picked might have chosen to remain near him. And then there was Captain America... the man had been chosen as an Avenger, yes, yet before the threat of an alien invasion had become known, he'd shown no interest whatsoever in leaving his SHIELD-issued apartment more than absolutely necessary. Steve Rogers was a soldier through and through, and even he'd said so more than once... and yet he'd chosen not to return either...

"Just what is going on here?" Hill demanded, seeing all the people in the room.

There was a tension in the room, so thick it could almost be cut with a knife. And not everyone in the room was sitting in the chairs around the holotable. A few, like Stark, Romanoff, Peterson, Magneto, Rogue and the Wolverine stood against the walls; Hawkeye was perched on top of a cabinet; the Professor was on his chair beside his partner. And then there were those Fury and Hill didn't know, which weren't exactly few.

"That's what we'd all like to know, Nick." Stark hissed, dead serious.

"Easy Tony." A female voice called. "Let me handle this."

Fury looked honestly flabbergasted when he saw the woman standing before him, almost as if he'd just seen a ghost.

"Katharine..." He breathed out.

"The name is Kathryn Nicholas, it's always been." She corrected him calmly.

"Agent Kathryn Adler... the Sphinx." Hill realized.

"Former Agent... and that's irrelevant right now." Kathryn Salani, Nightingale's aunt, stated calmly. "What I... what we all would like to know right now, is who in the seven frigging hells decided to drop a bloody nuke in the middle of Manhattan... after the battle was already won?!"

There was no answer forthcoming... though if that was because Hill and Fury had nothing to say, or they simply didn't want to say it, it was difficult to tell.

"It's not really that difficult." Magneto drawled, voice dripping with poison and hate. "It's not like it's the first time they did it anyway."

"What...?" Hill wasn't expecting that.

"October 24th, 1962..." Magneto began.

"The Cuban Missile Crisis?" Felix Blake, one of the agents with him, interrupted, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"There was a lot more going on back then, that just the Soviets wanting to place nuclear missiles that close to the US." Magneto stated evenly. "A battle took place, the likes of which you couldn't possibly imagine. And after all was said and done, after it'd been won, by the right people... soldiers, your soldiers, and the Soviets, banded together, they shot their missiles at the beach, at the very group of people who'd just saved them all, who'd prevented nuclear war. They put their differences aside, to try and kill those they all saw as freaks, simply for being different, for not being what most would consider human."

"How could you possibly know that?" Victoria Hand asked, honestly intrigued.

"You were there, weren't you?" Hill guessed.

"I was, we both were." Magneto stated, signaling to his partner. "We lead a group of young mutants, barely more than children back then, against an insane bastard and his own team. We stopped the war you feared so much, and then all weapons were turned on us." His eyes narrowed. "So really, what happened three days ago is just more of the same, as far as I'm concerned. I'll never understand what makes Charles keep believing."

"Because not everyone is like them." The Professor said quietly, though all could still hear him. "There is still hope..." He sighed. "And the day I stop believing that, I will feel so lost..."

Erik did not insist, he knew how much things like that hurt his Charles. It was something he hadn't understood back in '62, but then again, back then he'd been young and more than a bit stupid. So full of anger he couldn't see the love Charles held for him... or maybe he just hadn't been ready for it, for Charles, back then... it'd have taken them a very long time... Erik would never regret anything more than he did all the years they'd lost. At least they'd had a chance, there had been a short while, back on '06, when he'd feared he'd never get even that much.

"Here are the facts." Skye stated abruptly, taking over. "Grant Ward tried to kill two mutants for... well, we don't even know why he did something that stupid. Scorch noticed and helped them, did what he could to stop Ward and in the end it cost both of them their lives. Just two days ago John Garrett tried to collect samples: blood, skin-cells, and who knows what else, from Scorch's body, claiming he'd a right to it, as if he hadn't been a human, as if having powers meant Chan had no rights. I, of course, didn't allow that."

"Are you the reason we cannot find Agent Garrett?" Hill asked suspiciously.

"Please!" Skye snorted. "He left the Tower by his own foot, I could show you the security feed if you want... I warned him though, of what would happen if he ever tried to hurt my people again."

Hill murmured there was no need for that fed, though JARVIS showed it on the holo-table anyway. Fury and Hand though, chose to focus on the second part of the woman's statement.

"And just what would you do?" Hand asked, a brow arched.

Skye seemed to actually have to stop and consider how to answer that, when someone decided to give her a hand so-to-speak.

"Hey Tremors!" Mack called.

Everyone turned in his direction at the same time, saw him raising a gun, pointing it at the young woman. He wasn't that far from her, and yet there was no negative reaction. Skye just rolled her eyes, mostly at the nickname, before waving a hand in the air, right in front of the gun, it fell into pieces at their feet.

"Exactly what I just did." The woman stated simply.

The Agents had heard the reports about what the leader of one of the teams had done just outside SHIELD HQ to one of the whale-like monsters; though most hadn't really believed it. It seemed simply too incredible. Especially considering that throughout all the training time, Skye had never once shown any gift, beyond what she could do behind a computer. And yet, the proof was right there before them.

"The point is, the bomb." Kathryn reminded everyone. "We know you weren't the one who ordered it to be fired Nicholas."

"Which is pretty much the only reason we allowed any of you in here." Stark added.

"We don't know who sent it." Hill stated.

"Please!" Pepper's unladylike snort was enough to call everyone's attention. "You can't be that naïve, can you?"

Hill didn't seem to have a response to that, neither did Hand and Blake... Fury on the other hand.

"You know who did it." Kathryn wasn't asking.

"Not for sure." Fury stated evasively.

Kathryn just rolled her eyes, before signaling someone with her hand. In a second the screens came on again, showing a variety of video-feeds, pictures, graphics. It took a few seconds, but soon they all realized who that information pertained to.

"Alexander Pierce?!" Hill's voice went through two octaves in her shock. "You hacked Alexander Pierce?! Are you insane?! He's the highest ranked in SHIELD."

"He's also the one who pushed the metaphorical red-button that sent that nuke to Manhattan, to us, when there was no longer any need." Skye practically hissed.

"When Pierce finds out..." Hand began.

"Oh, he knows." Skye interrupted her with a shrug. "Or he will, any moment now. I sent him an e-mail, a short while ago. With a copy of all this, along with explicit instructions of what he's going to do now."

"And what do you suppose he's going to do?" Blake asked, half-insulted, half-curious.

"He's going to quit." Skye stated. "Then he's going to disappear and get nowhere near any of us for the rest of his life, because he does, he will regret it."

"I don't think Pierce will like threats much." Hill commented.

"No, I don't suppose he will." Skye shrugged.

"I don't care whatever he thinks." Stark stated, livid. "He crossed a line, when he shot that nuke, when he decided we were all expendable. If he wants to live, he will run, and never stop running. Least we catch him..."

Tony Stark had once been called the Merchant of Death... it'd been a long time since that, so long, people sometimes forgot why that was. It wasn't just that he'd created guns, but the fact that he could use them (and Fury was convinced there were a lot of guns that never made it to the factory line, possibly never made it out of Stark's own mind). In that moment there was no doubt what would happen to Alexander Pierce if he didn't do as had been demanded in whatever e-mail had been sent to him... and there was no doubt that if Skye didn't do it, Stark, or someone else would. And not even Professor X or Captain America were complaining about the possibility.

They knew any one of them wouldn't be able to do much, not against someone with the power and the experience Alexander Pierce had (and still would have, even after he'd left SHIELD), but then again, they weren't alone. They were an Alliance, and that wasn't something that would end simply because the battle had ended.

That wasn't the end of it either, though the end was not something any of them could have ever seen coming, not at all.

"You what...?" Hill, Hand and Blake asked after the words were first said.

"We, the Avengers are splitting from SHIELD." Captain America repeated in a completely serious voice.

"You cannot do that!" Blake cried out.

"What about the people who need you?" Hand demanded.

"Oh, you misunderstand me, ma'am." Rogers stated. "We'll help the people, we'll never stop doing that. We just don't wish to be associated with SHIELD anymore. We'll be an independent team, just like the Fantastic 4, the X-Men and all the others."

He carefully avoided giving any more names. Darcy and Skye had made sure there were no records in SHIELD's databases of any member of the Alliance, even the Avengers' files had been reduced to the bare basics. After what Pierce had done, and knowing as they did that the WSC had, if not backed him, at the very least turned a blind eye to his actions, was enough to decide they wanted nothing to do with them.

Fury didn't say a word, he knew it was useless. If even Captain America had given up on them... then there really was nothing that could be said anymore. A part of him couldn't help but wonder if there really was something he wasn't seeing, something he was missing... he'd always admired Alexander Pierce... then again the man had looked at Fury after that mess of an op all those years ago, when he was all that was left of the most promising team of Elites since the Commandos, and instead of kicking him to the curve, had offered him Directorship of SHIELD... Maybe he just had been in the same position so long he'd become blind to the things that went on in the other levels, both beneath him and above... He didn't really know, but something told him he would be finding out, and he quite probably wouldn't like it.

Agent Melinda May waited until Fury and his group had left the Tower, their quinjet already in the air, before saying what had been running through his mind for a while:

"With all due respect to Skye, but there's no way you could possibly have hacked Alexander Pierce and the whole World Security Council on your own." The woman stated.

"Whoever said she did it on her own?" Darcy smirked almost predatory.

The message was quite clear.

Phil didn't say a word. He had seen Darcy working frenetically on her computer, late at night, but he hadn't asked what she was doing. He'd known that once he needed to know, she would tell him. He trusted her. Just like he trusted the rest of the Alliance, even those most would consider volatile, even dangerous (like the old 'villain' Magneto, the animalistic Wolverine, the rest of the secretive mutants, the unknown magicals... really, all of them in the end).

"So, can we have a party now?" Tony asked suddenly, his tone a complete 180 from how he'd sounded while talking to Fury and his entourage. "I mean, we saved the world three days ago and we've yet to celebrate!"

It was true. They'd been so busy working on arranging funerals, medical aid for those that needed it, coordinating the start of the restorations, temporary housing for the people whose homes had been lost in the battle, and of course getting ready for the confrontation with Fury (and what they had done regarding Pierce). So really, they were probably overdue some celebration.

"I could do with some celebrating." Pepper agreed.

Soon everyone was nodding in agreement.

"JARVIS!" Tony cried out gleefully. "Get everything ready! Order shawarma for everyone... I didn't ask, everyone alright with shawarma?" There were vague nods all around. "I don't actually know what it is but there's a place a few blocks from here that sells it, I saw it during the battle, and it sounds tasty, so I wanna try it."

Everyone laughed at his rant.

An hour later the penthouse was full almost to bursting point as everyone ate shawarma, drank a variety of sodas (and some alcoholic drinks) as they celebrated what a group of completely differently, yet equally talented individuals had achieved together.

 **xXx**

Late at night, the party had yet to end, though most people had calmed down from their near-exuberant states from earlier. They were sitting in various places, drinking either soda, wine, or some even some of the best whiskey Tony had (he'd stated that if a celebration for saving the world wasn't a good reason for drinking those bottles, nothing was). Things were pretty easy, mostly quiet, when the first lines of a song began reaching them (or at least those still awake):

"There's a hero  
If you look inside your heart  
You don't have to be afraid  
Of what you are  
There's an answer  
If you reach into your soul  
And the sorrow that you know  
Will melt away."

"And then a hero comes along  
With the strength to carry on  
And you cast your fears aside  
And you know you can survive  
So when you feel like hope is gone  
Look inside you and be strong  
And you'll finally see the truth  
That a hero lies in you..."

It took a few lines, but soon everyone in the Tower (thanks a little bit to JARVIS) was listening to the Nightingale's song. It seemed almost like an instinctive reaction as they began straying to their beloveds. Tony and Pepper together (their daughter snoring softly in between them), Jane and Thor, Bruce and Betty (their son sleeping beside them), Clint and Natasha side by side, Steve and Sharon (they shared a silent toast to those long gone as they continued drinking), Phil and Darcy (it was the first time they did anything publicly to show they were together). And it wasn't even just them: Charles and Erik had been married for years (and together, in one way or another, for much longer), Mystique and Destiny were together too, though they'd never seen a point in marriage, Logan and Marie weren't married either and had never seen the need (they were mates, and that's all that truly mattered), FitzSimmons, and many others. Some didn't need to be with someone romantically either; like Skye, who didn't have a boyfriend (or girlfriend), but she had those she considered her family, more than anyone who shared her blood too; and many others.

"It's a long road  
When you face the world alone  
No one reaches out a hand  
For you to hold  
You can find love  
If you search within yourself  
And the emptiness you felt  
Will disappear."

"And then a hero comes along  
With the strength to carry on  
And you cast your fears aside  
And you know you can survive  
So when you feel like hope is gone  
Look inside you and be strong  
And you'll finally see the truth  
That a hero lies in you..."

On the second level of the viewing deck Nightingale sat on the edge, legs swinging on the air. Her match sat beside her, arms wrapped around her form, palms pressed lightly against her bared stomach (she'd pulled her shirt up); no bump was visible yet, but they both could already feel the growing life inside of her. It was like a dream, like the most perfect dream. Almost like the last 900-odd years hadn't happened, like Tinúviel had never lost her baby, never died herself, Loki'd never gone insane, had never lost his memories... their lives had never been turned upside down. Except all that had indeed happened. And as bad as that part had been, there had been many good things, not the least of which was the Alliance, of which they were an integral part. Only the Higher Powers knew what would have happened if Tinúviel hadn't died and been reincarnated into Nightingale as she was. If she hadn't been born human, allowing the connection to that Realm, allowing them all to join there when it was needed most. Who knew what would have happened then? To everyone they'd grown to know, respect and care for, even for Midgard and the Nine Realms and a whole... Perhaps things really were as they were for a reason...

"Lord knows  
Dreams are hard to follow  
But don't let anyone  
Tear them away  
Hold on  
There will be tomorrow  
In time  
You'll find the way."

"And then a hero comes along  
With the strength to carry on  
And you cast your fears aside  
And you know you can survive  
So when you feel like hope is gone  
Look inside you and be strong  
And you'll finally see the truth  
That a hero lies in you  
That a hero lies in you...  
That a hero lies in you..."

And so the night passed, an end and a new beginning.

The following morning the Aesir would return to Asgard, Loki and Nightingale with them. Jane would join them one day, having earned her place as Thor's bride through her work in Einstein-Rosen-Bridges, the device that had detected the chaos-portal, and many more.

In the following years many other things would be achieved by two or more of their 'sub-teams' working together, and not all of them would be related to fighting villains. After all, there were more than a few genius in a variety of areas, and many people quite willing to help make their world a better place. Together, they could and would change the world...

* * *

So, did you like it? I really, really hope you did. I tried so hard with this one.. was running out of time... and since I'm going out of town for the weekend I needed to finish it even faster. Hope it came out okay.

Now, on to the clarifications. I'll try to make them as short and to the point as I can:

First: the whole reincarnated-princess Nightingale has going on comes from 'Necklace of Songs', and was first mentioned in 'Nexus' in case you haven't read that. That was also where more about Rose (the one from some of the AUs was explained), it also explains the whole feeling cold/needing warmth she has. I tried to make it clear, though in case I didn't: Nightingale only had the prophetic dreams because of Rose.

Second: I know Skye's story was a mess, but at first I intended to keep her in the fringes, yet she insisted on having the spotlight at least for a while, and she's one of my favorite characters in the MCU, I'll admit. So I tried to adapt her story to this verse, while keeping as faithful as I could to the true nature of all the characters. I hope I succeeded. (I still don't know just what I'm gonna do with her and the Inhumans in the main story though, though I've got some vague ideas).

Third: I made Scorch an Inhuman... it was actually suggested in the wiki-page I was reading. How all the people in the Index appear to have been enhanced through drugs or mechanical means. He's supposed to have been altered by an accident, yet no one else living nearby was... my theory is that he was already an Inhuman, the fire/explosion whatever it was forced him to reveal his power and to protect the Tribe he pretended to have gained his powers during the accident.

Fourth: Someone asked to have people deal with the gifted, learn to accept them: Hence Hartley, Mack and a few others. Though, of course, we also needed the other side of the coin: hence Ward and Garrett (I really, really don't like those two).

Fifth: I didn't go more into Asgard because I didn't believe it necessary. With the return of the memories people understand the real Loki, so he's not really gonna have trouble on that front.

Sixth: I know I mentioned fandoms that I never really went into (Fantastic Four, Secret Circle, as well as allusions to others) that was intentional. I already had way too many characters to deal with, didn't need more, but I wanted to leave clear that there were more people involved in the alliance.

Seventh (and last): The whole thing with the nuke and Alexander Pierce was a way to give more depth to X-Men, as well as a suggestion to Hydra... without going into that because I so wasn't going to complicate myself even further. Really. We'll get to that point eventually.

So... that's all for this particular AU. I'm beginning work in the next. It'll be quite short, a bit of an alteration to Lost & Found... What if Nightingale had stayed away when the chitauri invasion happened? No one was there to bring Loki back until all was said and done (he was being manipulated) and he was taken away. Then the thing with Malekith happened, and Loki got another chance to see his beloved, what would happen then?

For those interested, I'm also working on a series of short fics, fix-its for BBC Sherlock, a few of those are actually crossovers with the MCU (though I've only posted one thus far, the others are coming).

Once again, I really hope you enjoyed this. Please don't forget to review. I live for your comments!


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